Hi I am newly diagnosed and new to the website.
Currently looking to measure before and after meals but had to have a snack( small piece of chicken and an apple) when I got in from work and realise now it probably raised my pre dinner reading.
The snack was about 1hr before the dinner
Any do's / donts of self measuring please?
That's so great that you're testing!
Yes, a snack before dinner will throw your numbers off. Some days are like that.
Testing pre-meal and 2-hours post meal works well to see how the food you ate affected you.
If you're curious as to how high your glucose peaks, you can do a 1-hour or 1-hour 15 minute post meal test.
If you have a really high reading, you can also test each hour to watch it go back down. Or go for a walk to reduce your glucose level, then see how much it dropped.
Other times to test are when you wake up.
I like to test before and after walking - (I generally wait until and hour and a half after eating to walk).
Each day, each week is different for me. Depending on what I want to monitor, I my test a lot or very little.
If you don't have a lot of test strips, prioritize what you want to monitor each day.
If you feel the need to test a lot, find the cheapest glucose strips available and buy them and the meter to go with it. Here in the US, I can buy strips that cost 18 cents each.
