[Prediabetes] to check the blood with glucose meter or not

[alamakota]

Hi,

My doctor told me not to use glucose meter to check the blood on daily basis or after meals but recently another doctor told me that it is good to buy glucose meter and use it when you are prediabetes. Now I'm confused. Should I do those checks and if the answer is yes what for? I don't use insulin injections, just metformine tablets. Could you please advice?

Best regards.

 

[Juicyj]

Hello @alamakota welcome to the forum

As you've posted in prediabetes then you're aware that you need to understand more about what's going on, only a blood glucose meter can tell you what's happening with your bodies response to food, it's like driving a car in the dark with no headlights. Record your results, keep a diary, see which foods cause spikes and use this information to educate yourself about your health, hopefully it will help shape your future.

 

[jjraak]

presumably your on here for a reason, and guessing that reason is your slightly concerned and wanted more info...?

If my post ended now and no one else posted would you be any wiser...?












same without a meter.

how can you know if your doing well..can't see it or really judge BG's. just by eye.

So IF you want know how well you are Re BG..test

IF you want to know if any foods spikes you particularly badly... test

test before a meal..test 2 hours after..the rise should be 2.0 or less.
IF more the food spikes you..and you now know to avoid
OR you ate too much, and now know to eat a smaller plate..

it's really just a food Jigsaw or a who dunnit...depending on your personal viewpoint.

many doctors say NOT to test..because we can't take the shock because we are weak and feeble minded.

we're not..we just need to choose WHAT we NEED to know ...and what we can safely ignore.

BG isn't one you can safely ignore IF you want to avoid T2 or any of the complications that it carries with it,
IMHO..

but as always we all make individual choices.

Good luck with finding the right ones for you.

Travel well, the journeys long
but so worth it.

 

[JoKalsbeek]

Hi,

My doctor told me not to use glucose meter to check the blood on daily basis or after meals but recently another doctor told me that it is good to buy glucose meter and use it when you are prediabetes. Now I'm confused. Should I do those checks and if the answer is yes what for? I don't use insulin injections, just metformine tablets. Could you please advice?

Best regards.

Hi @alamakota, and welcome

I'd say, test. I was prediabetic without anyone bothering to tell me, and if someone had, I could've done something about my high glucose levels, weight, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and extreme fatigue looong before they made life just about unlivable. If someone'd told me, I could've just tackled everything and not become a full-fledged, complication suffering diabetic to begin with. So that's where a meter and a change in diet come in. The meter is useful because it tells you what foods agree with you, and which don't. (Spoiler: It's the carbs we can't handle). If you use a meter to keep an eye on your blood sugar levels, check foods, etc... You could get your numbers back into the non-diabetic range right-quick, and keep them there. As in... Avoid the whole diabetes thing all together! It's a life-long thing though, if you go back to eating things that make your blood sugars go up, you're right back where you started, but... If you're willing to do the work, you can steer clear of a whole lot of misery.

https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html this might help. It's about T2/PreD nutrition as well as how to test effectively. It'll be a lot of testing right at first though, but after a while it tapers off. I spent 1000 euro's on teststrips that first year, (don't make my mistake! Get a meter that has cheap strips!!! @Rachox has excellent info on which you could use), but now that I know which foods do what, I only test when I'm feeling a little off, or eat in a restaurant I don't know, have a flu- or steroid jab, that sort of thing... A container lasts me a lot longer now than it used to. So yeah, I can fully endorse testing.

Good luck getting this thing licked!
Jo