How much do your sugars jump after eating?

Wurst said:

I'm no expert but from what i've been lead to believe is if you allow yourself to spike every meal (i.e. over 8 mmol) consistently then you're at risk for some complications eventually.

I try and keep my blood sugar 'flat lining' at all times, with low carb , careful carb counting or smaller meals it's achievable. Maybe what I have read is inaccurate to a certain degree ,but who wants to put it to the test ?

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Are you Type 1 or Type 2? And how flat a line are you talking about? I read that about spikes lately and have been trying to avoid them more. Just in case!

But years ago I told my endo that I was sometimes spiking after exercise, and he said not to give up exercise because of the spikes. I wonder what he'd say now?

joules said:

I am interested to know how everyone else sugar levels behave after eating (say) 40grams Carbs, at breakfast (vogal seeded bread/toast)?

For me, I take 2u/10grams; 30mins prior to eating. My blood glucose rises for the first 2 hours then reduces back down to normal. Does this suggest I should stay clear of this type of food?

Please share what happens for you when eating carbs?

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I have found that being very careful about the timing of my bolus and eating helps to stop my BS from shooting up as far as 200.

But really because of the action of insulin lasting up to four hours, if you go into a meal with an 85mg/dl, for example, you really don't want it to be that low two hours later, or another hour later you will hypo, even if your basal is correct.

I aim to have mine between 140 and 150 mg/dl two hours after my bolus. Sorry, I didn't make that clear first time. For me, it's bolus, wait 10-15 minutes, eat (say twenty minutes eating) then test one and a half to two hours after the BOLUS, so that's one to one and a half hours after eating. Ideally your before meal and after meal bloods should be within 30 mg/dl of each other. The only time you want to break that rule is if you start with a hypo or hypo and correct for it in the bolus.

I started to hit those targets when I started to pay more attention to the timing of bolus and meals. before that I never believed I could do it!

s-s-i-i-c-c-k-k said:

My blood sugars before meals are about 120. I take 7 units of NovoRapid fast acting insulin and they jump to 200 in one hour post meal, but after 2/2.5 hours they are usually back in range.

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That's a timing issue, I reckon.

RuthW said:

But years ago I told my endo that I was sometimes spiking after exercise, and he said not to give up exercise because of the spikes. I wonder what he'd say now?

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He'd still say "Don't give up exercise", due to, as you pointed out in another topic, the benefits it has relating to insulin sensitivity.

RuthW said:

Are you Type 1 or Type 2? And how flat a line are you talking about? I read that about spikes lately and have been trying to avoid them more. Just in case!

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I'm type 1 it says in my profile I hope. My target is never over 5.5 mmol (100 mg/dl) regardless of eating / exercise, HB1AC has been 4.9 % the last two attempts. I low carb in the mornings /afternoons and eat **** later in the evening, when I'm at the height of my insulin sensitivity.

Exercise for me is daily cycling commuting 30 Km per day and running at the weekend. I've never had problems with spikes and exercise , only low's which are easy to treat.

tim2000s said:

He'd still say "Don't give up exercise", due to, as you pointed out in another topic, the benefits it has relating to insulin sensitivity.

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Agreed, exercise has so many other health benefits aside from helping to control bg levels and insulin sensitivity.

Wurst said:

I'm type 1 it says in my profile I hope. My target is never over 5.5 mmol (100 mg/dl) regardless of eating / exercise, HB1AC has been 4.9 % the last two attempts. I low carb in the mornings /afternoons and eat **** later in the evening, when I'm at the height of my insulin sensitivity.

Exercise for me is daily cycling commuting 30 Km per day and running at the weekend. I've never had problems with spikes and exercise , only low's which are easy to treat.

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Sorry, it might be my inability to use it properly but when I'm using the app, as opposed to the webview, I can never see people's profiles, etc.

But those are superb results!

tim2000s said:

He'd still say "Don't give up exercise", due to, as you pointed out in another topic, the benefits it has relating to insulin sensitivity.

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Yes, but the spikes are bugging me now! I seem to have them sorted after eating (mostly) but still haven't sorted the post-exercise ones. They are much more random for me.

Gary61 said:

Another thing you might like to take into account is even one or two cups of coffee in the morning, can shoot your sugars up by increasing your adrenilin which consequently triggers your liver to releasing sugar into your body. I have to inject between 3 to 5 units of Humalog to counteract this effect. It seems to work more aggressively with me in the morning than any other time of the day, so don't forget that it's not only carbs that you have to watch out for.

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Gary - sorry this is going slightly off topic, but can I get more info on the coffee induced spike from you.

From your monitoring, do you know how much of a BG spike can a coffee cause? (I don't take Humalog so 3-5 units doesn't mean anything unfortunately.). I appreciate your coffee may be stronger/weaker than mine, but I've never heard of this before, although it does make sense.

Ledzeptt said:

Gary - sorry this is going slightly off topic, but can I get more info on the coffee induced spike from you.

From your monitoring, do you know how much of a BG spike can a coffee cause? (I don't take Humalog so 3-5 units doesn't mean anything unfortunately.). I appreciate your coffee may be stronger/weaker than mine, but I've never heard of this before, although it does make sense.

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Bear in mind that this is not a universal phenomenon - espresso/pure coffee has no effect whatsoever on my BS.

pinewood said:

Bear in mind that this is not a universal phenomenon - espresso/pure coffee has no effect whatsoever on my BS.

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Thanks Pinewood.

I'll answer my own question now (for anyone else's benefit)...

I performed an experiment this morning with caffetiere strength coffee two hours after breakfast. Taking readings before, then 45 mins later (no exercise) my BG had dropped by 0.5. Therefore, I'm pleased there's no impact for me. A double espresso or strong coffee from a barista may have an impact, particularly without any food, but I'm not going to worry for now.

I get more and more confused about spikes. The way I see it as a complete novice to all this is.....whatever you eat it is going to make your BG go up to some extent....I hope that's correct and certainly is in my experience so far. The question for me is...how much of a 'spike' is allowed? Any increase in my BG taken 2 hours after eating soon returns to much lower and acceptable levels a couple of hours later so is that how it is supposed to be?....as long as it goes back down to normal being the generally accepted norm? The 'spikes' 2 hours after eating are always under the advised numbers for type 2 and even when I have rarely been bad and had a huge spike ..it has come back down to normal within a couple of hours. I am just afraid to eat much in case I'm doing it wrong

Sorry for the late reply about coffee but I can say I only experience higher blood sugars when I consume coffee in the morning. Perhaps it is an individual thing and I'm not for one minute suggesting that other people should inject for it on my say so, but my consultants view seems reasonable enough which is that my liver produces sugar to counteract the adrenilin rush I get on my double shot of Costa. My B.S. has just risen 3mmo/l while writing this drinking my coffee lol. .
One things for sure however using my continuous blood sugar monitor and that is that it is very rare that I experience two days the same and I always feel that to a certain extent, I am generally fire fighting my way through trying to keep control of my sugars. Even when looking at my trends overnight, because of it's accuracy, I can see that my control is not a straight line even though I have not eaten for many hours since. Because control in diabetes is not a perfect science, people must try and learn to accept that they will always need to tweak their dosages when it suits and that their bodies will on occasion produce results which baffle even the most experienced diabetic. To answer how high my sugars rise is that it varies a great deal and depends on many factors such as the G.I. index of the food I'm consuming but they do rise to generally 10-15 mmo/l and on occasion higher, but generally I can bring them down within 2 hours.
I appreciate the commitment that people undergo in participating on low carb diets for optimum control, but I on the other hand enjoy eating and consume on occasion quite a high carb count and consequently inject high dosages of insulin to counteract it, but on the other hand I also exercise to a reasonable standard quite regularly, which helps a lot. My last HBA1 was 6.6 which I'm more than happy about considering the busy life I lead.