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Pre-diabetic?

M

m1567

Newbie
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4
Hi there,

I've been having issues with my blood sugar for around 3 months now and it's getting worse. However, my GP says everything is fine. My HBac1 was done last week and it's 31 which seems fine. It was 29 6 months ago though so it has gone up. However, every single night, I'm experiencing hypoglycemia (measured with a monitor). I'm not overweight at all but I do have a history of bulimia. PCOS has also been ruled out. I also have severe CFS/POTS which makes the situation complicated as they are disorders of the nervous system so they can affect blood sugar. I also now have anxiety about what is going on so that is possibly a factor too! I've started to quite intensely monitor blood sugar for a few days and I've just noticed a pattern.

Just wondering if this seems like it could be related to potential diabetes?

Fasting this morning 4.1 mmol/l (had to have a snack at 2.30 am as I went hypo). This is too low for me. I have occasionally taken my fasting blood sugar in the morning and 4.3-4.5 is my 'normal'.

Breakfast: Oats (only 20g!) mixed with coconut flour, seeds, blueberries and PB (around 26g carbs)
I started to feel ill so I took it after 30 minutes and it was 6.7!
It then crashed back down over the next hour to 4.6

Lunch :
1 piece biona rye, 2 eggs, half an avocado and some mushrooms (around 35g carbs I think)
Took it 30 minutes later and it was 5.1
I started to have heart pounding and feeling of shaking inside so I took it again and it was 6.5 but just 15 minutes later it was 5.2 (this would be 90 minutes after eating).
It will then typically go back down to 4.6

Sorry about all the figures. I've never monitored my blood sugar before so I have no idea what is normal. However, these seem like quite large fluctuations and I'm very sensitive to how fast the numbers are dropping. I kind of feel like it shouldn't be spiking and crashing that fast. I'm going to speak to my GP again this week and push for an insulin/OGTT test as I feel it's some kind of reactive hypoglycemia. I have already attempted to reduce carbs but I'm looking into massively reducing my carbohydrate intake to see if that would keep everything more stable. Do you think this would help?

If anyone has any thoughts/experience re. this, it would be much appreciated. Thanks!
 
Those numbers are all completely normal and healthy.
 
m1567 said:
Thanks so much for the response. Is the spike and drop in the numbers 'normal'?
Click to expand...
Yes, completely normal!

I think you might find this graph informative. It's the result of a non diabetic who has worn a glucose sensor for two weeks. As you can see, there are regular drops between 3 and 4, especially during the nighttime, when blood glucose is usually lowest.

You can read the whole story here, lots of information and more graphs to show you 'spikes' after food.
Blood glucose isn't a straight line in non diabetics!
https://t0dfor2weeks.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/introduction/
(At the bottom of each page is a 'next' button so you can read about his findings during the whole two weeks.)

 


Thanks so so much. That's really interesting and I feel a lot better now. That's actually the time that I'm waking up in the night except I'm having disproportionate 'hypoglycemic' symptoms. It seems like the problem might actually be that I've become super sensitive to the fluctuations in my blood sugars rather than the actual blood sugar itself due to the nervous system dysregulation which is crazy but CFS is a crazy illness!
I'll still speak to my GP just to make sure but thanks so much for you help!
 
I think what you’ve just said there is exactly right. On those figures there’s no way that you have diabetes. Your blood sugars are excellent. There are absolutely *not* “large fluctuations - they’re the opposite of that, really - textbook-perfect numbers, that barely fluctuate at all. So I think your feelings of heart pounding and shaking are more likely due to something else (the POTS?).

I promise that going from 4.1 to 6.7 half an hour after eating oats is not in any way a spike. Neither is a 6.5 after lunch. I am so jealous of your numbers I can’t even tell you!

So no, not large fluctuations, barely any meaningful fluctuation at all. If you look at the graphs of some Type 1 diabetics on insulin, you would see what a large fluctuation really was. I’ve seen graphs going from 3.1 to 18 to 26 to 4 in the space of an hour.

For me, I consider myself a *reasonably* well controlled Type 2, on medication but not on insulin. As a rule, I’ll tend to be about 6 on waking, 8 by the time I’ve got dressed, staying around 8.5 until about 11am (I suffer like many Type 2’s from “dawn phenomenon”), then dropping to 6 or 7. Meal times I’ll very predictably peak about 45-90 minutes after eating (if its a low carb meal, it will probably rise by no more than 2.5mmol. If it was oats or bread, much much higher). Its usually back to where it was after two hours (in fact generally its lower than pre-meal, because cooking tends to raise my blood sugar, so it’s always a bit higher than typical before meals!).

Your numbers are an example of a perfection that most Type 2’s would kill for!
 

Hi, the comparison with T1 exogenous insulin use realy isn't worth bringing into the equation due to the actions & working profiles of the insulins used?
Your looking at compensation for a non working "component" (the pancreas.) with a T1 being subtituted by an insulin delivery system by someone attempting dose calculations & insulin timing to compliment what was eaten.

To be frank, what you describe sounds to me like an over treatment of hypo with the "3.1'to 18." & poassible Rage bolusing bring the 26mmol in line?

Regarding the numbers for @m1567 . They look like standard healthy BGs...

However, it would be better to consult the GP regarding the symptoms after eating..
 
Oh I quite agree @Jaylee, I wasn’t trying to compare the OP’s sugars with the sugars of a T1D - just making the point that her description of “plummeting” and “spiking” blood sugars weren’t really what I would describe as plummeting and spiking. She said herself that she didn’t really have any terms of reference as to whether a level going from, say, 4.1 to 6.5 to 5.2 was excessively variable.
 
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