Low blood sugar readings

Hal said:

Hi all, a little bit of advice if anybody knows please.

I am worried about my wifes blood sugar levels and worried that she may have a hypo tonight.

Yesterday teatime i took her blood sugar and it was a shocking 25.3 which was before her meal.

This morning prior to anything to eat it was at a more safe 5.2

Prior to any tea this evening it was at a shocking 2.8

I checked 2 hours later after her meal and it was at 3.8

A short time ago i took it again at it was at 5.8

She is currently on Byetta which is given twice daily the 10 unit injection
Did not give her insulin today because they were in a good range, too low before tea anyway.

She is also on slow release metformin 2mg in the morning
As well as 80mg Gliclazide at morning and teatime.

She has only recently gone onto the last 2 items, prior to this she was taking 3 metformin 500mg daily, morning, lunch and tea.

Only started on these 2 new items about a fortnight ago when we were struggling to control her blood sugars as they were above 10 whenever i did them.

Not had much luck prior to today with the odd one getting round 5 in the morning.

Any help with this problem would be appreciated as i dont want her going into a hypo

Thanks all

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Here is the advice we usually give to newly diagnosed type 2 diabetics.This forum doesn't always follow the recommended dietary advice, you have to work out what works for you as we are all different . Too many carbs can play havoc with the Bg levels....you have to experiment.

It's not just 'sugars' you need to avoid, diabetes is an inability to process glucose properly. Carbohydrate converts, in the body, to glucose. So it makes sense to reduce the amount of carbohydrate that you eat which includes sugars.

The main carbs to avoid or reduce are the complex or starchy carbohydrates such a bread, potatoes, pasta and rice also any flour based products. The starchy carbs all convert 100% to glucose in the body and raise the blood sugar levels significantly.

The way to find out how different foods affect you is to do regular daily testing and keep a food diary for a couple of weeks. If you test just before eating then two hours after eating you will see the effect of certain foods on your blood glucose levels.

Buy yourself a carb counter book (you can get these on-line) and you will be able to work out how much carbs you are eating, when you test, the reading two hours after should be roughly the same as the before eating reading, if it is then that meal was fine, if it isn’t then you need to check what you have eaten and think about reducing the portion size of carbs.

When you are buying products check the total carbohydrate content, this includes the sugar content. Do not just go by the amount of sugar on the packaging as this is misleading to a diabetic.

As for a tester, try asking the nurse/doctor and explain that you want to be proactive in managing your own diabetes and therefore need to test so that you can see just how foods affect your blood sugar levels. Hopefully this will work ! Sometimes they are not keen to give Type 2’s the strips on prescription, (in the UK) but you can but try !!

As a Type 2 the latest 2010 NICE guidelines for Bg levels are as follows:
Fasting (waking).......between 4 - 7 mmol/l.
2 hrs after meals......no more than 8.5 mmol/l.
If you are able to keep the post meal numbers lower, so much the better.

It also helps if you can do 30 minutes moderate exercise a day. It doesn't have to be strenuous.

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