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Surprised by 1st home glucose test levels

Alexandra100

Alexandra100

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,803
Location
West Yorkshire
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
My recent HbA1c test showed 41, a year ago it was 40. I have since cut back on carbs, but nowhere as near as low as most people here. This morning I did my 1st ever home tests. Result: fasting 5; 1 hr after breakfast 4.6; 2 hrs after breakfast 5.3. Breakfast was 2 oatcakes with peanut butter, 5 dessert spoons stewed apricots, 3 dessertspoons greek yoghurt, 1 small cube fetta cheese. I am surprised by these results and wonder whether I can trust them. I used a TEE2 meter. I did have to squeeze a bit to get enough blood out, as I suffer from Raynaud's so don't have great circulation in my fingers.

Any comments would be very welcome. I have already benefitted enormously from this forum. I find the quality of the contributions extremely high.
 
I would think so
Your blood work puts you in the pre diabetic range so quite early on in terms of your journey with diabetes / any progression - early on more moderate adjustment of dietary carbs are often enough to control diabetes or completely stop it in its tracks and so stave off any progression
Keep on testing but dont obsess about it - get enough data to show the impact of your most often eaten foods and then use any significant change in your home testing results to identify any changes in how well your body handles them and to guide your response to any changes
 
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Your HbA1c tests put you in the non-diabetic range, not even pre-diabetic.
Your finger prick tests also put you in the non-diabetic range, particularly in view of what you ate.

Whatever you are doing is working for you. There is no need to be surprised. You are not diabetic. :)
 
You appear to be controlling your BG well with diet. But I would recommend keeping up the testing - one day is not enough to see a trend.

I too suffer from Reynauds so can sympathise with your difficult "blood letting". A few things I have learnt over the years:
- don't squeeze your fingers too hard. This can lead to bruised finger tips
- most finger pricking devices, have a depth adjuster. Play with this to maximise your chance of getting blood first time without going too deep.
- make a hot drink before you test and warm your hand against the mug to bring your blood closer to the surface
- shake your hands downwards BEFORE pricking to get the blood flowing into your finger tips. Once, I shook them after pricking. It got the blood flowing ... all over my nice white shirt!
 
UK diagnostic criteria
Non diabetic hba1c range 41 and under
Pre diabetic range 42-47
Diabetic range over 48 ( with caveats re frequency of result and those from finger prick tests
Some other countries use a lower cut off for pre diabetes
 
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The results seem fairly normal and match the top end of normal HBA1C so I would have no reason to doubt them. Keep testing meals to see if this continues. Before changing your diet with a HBA1C of 41 you would have been seeing an average of 6.5 on your meter.

We are all different at different stages on a diabetes journey so camparisons with others don't work.
 
badcat said:
I would think so
Your blood work puts you in the pre diabetic range so quite early on in terms of your journey with diabetes / any progression - early on more moderate adjustment of dietary carbs are often enough to control diabetes or completely stop it in its tracks and so stave off any progression
Keep on testing but dont obsess about it - get enough data to show the impact of your most often eaten foods and then use any significant change in your home testing results to identify any changes in how well your body handles them and to guide your response to any changes
Click to expand...
Badcat, thanks, that's encouraging.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
Your HbA1c tests put you in the non-diabetic range, not even pre-diabetic.
Your finger prick tests also put you in the non-diabetic range, particularly in view of what you ate.

Whatever you are doing is working for you. There is no need to be surprised. You are not diabetic. :)
Click to expand...
Bluetit, thanks. What I ate may sound like a lot of carbs, but it's a lot less than I was used to eating. One thing that surprised me was getting a lower reading after eating than I did fasting, and then higher after two hours than after one. The 1 hour was from the start of breakfast, maybe counting from the end of meals would be better?
 
helensaramay said:
You appear to be controlling your BG well with diet. But I would recommend keeping up the testing - one day is not enough to see a trend.

I too suffer from Reynauds so can sympathise with your difficult "blood letting". A few things I have learnt over the years:
- don't squeeze your fingers too hard. This can lead to bruised finger tips
- most finger pricking devices, have a depth adjuster. Play with this to maximise your chance of getting blood first time without going too deep.
- make a hot drink before you test and warm your hand against the mug to bring your blood closer to the surface
- shake your hands downwards BEFORE pricking to get the blood flowing into your finger tips. Once, I shook them after pricking. It got the blood flowing ... all over my nice white shirt!
Click to expand...
Great to meet another Raynaud's sufferer here. I'll certainly try the shaking strategy. Better than a hot drink are the gadgets I have just bought - battery heated hand-warmers. They are FAR better than the old gel ones. They get much hotter and they can be switched on and off at will and re-charged vis USB. One charge lasts hours. I have bought 2 pairs - one to wash and one to wear, as it were.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cookey-Rec...8&qid=1504180436&sr=8-5&keywords=hand+warmers
I was concerned about the squeezing because I have read somewhere on here that it may affect the result.
 
Alison Campbell said:
The results seem fairly normal and match the top end of normal HBA1C so I would have no reason to doubt them. Keep testing meals to see if this continues. Before changing your diet with a HBA1C of 41 you would have been seeing an average of 6.5 on your meter.

We are all different at different stages on a diabetes journey so camparisons with others don't work.
Click to expand...
Alison, thanks for the encouragement. Yes, I'll certainly be keeping on testing.
 
Alexandra100 said:
My recent HbA1c test showed 41, a year ago it was 40. I have since cut back on carbs, but nowhere as near as low as most people here. This morning I did my 1st ever home tests. Result: fasting 5; 1 hr after breakfast 4.6; 2 hrs after breakfast 5.3. Breakfast was 2 oatcakes with peanut butter, 5 dessert spoons stewed apricots, 3 dessertspoons greek yoghurt, 1 small cube fetta cheese. I am surprised by these results and wonder whether I can trust them. I used a TEE2 meter. I did have to squeeze a bit to get enough blood out, as I suffer from Raynaud's so don't have great circulation in my fingers.

Any comments would be very welcome. I have already benefitted enormously from this forum. I find the quality of the contributions extremely high.
Click to expand...


Those results are really, really bad. I'll tell you what though? Give them to me and any you can have mine in their place. ONLY JOKING - your results are excellent. Yes you can trust your meter as most if not all fingerprick meters are accurate within a tolerance of +/- 10%. A small tip for you if you have not already tried it is to stick your hands in warm water before you test. It may help you to get the blood out. Once again excellent results. Keep up your most excellent work
 
Diabeticliberty said:
Those results are really, really bad. I'll tell you what though? Give them to me and any you can have mine in their place. ONLY JOKING - your results are excellent. Yes you can trust your meter as most if not all fingerprick meters are accurate within a tolerance of +/- 10%. A small tip for you if you have not already tried it is to stick your hands in warm water before you test. It may help you to get the blood out. Once again excellent results. Keep up your most excellent work
Click to expand...
Thanks so much for your generous encouragement. It does help.
 
Alexandra100 said:
Bluetit, thanks. What I ate may sound like a lot of carbs, but it's a lot less than I was used to eating. One thing that surprised me was getting a lower reading after eating than I did fasting, and then higher after two hours than after one. The 1 hour was from the start of breakfast, maybe counting from the end of meals would be better?
Click to expand...

I always time my testing from the first bite. I believe this is the recommended way although some do it differently. If looking for trends, as you are, then all that matters is consistency.

There is nothing unusual in seeing a lower number after eating breakfast than your fasting number before breakfast. Fasting numbers can be influenced by many different things including your liver dumping glucose, and it could well be you were on your way down from this fasting number. It could also mean you have a very good first insulin response.

The combination of foods eaten will determine the timing of your peaks. It isn't set in stone that we peak at an hour, or even at 2 hours. Low GI foods will peak later, fatty meals will often peak later, and high protein meals have a mind of their own. Normally my peaks are about 90 minutes, but can sometimes be at 2.5hrs .
 
Alexandra100 said:
One thing that surprised me was getting a lower reading after eating than I did fasting, and then higher after two hours than after one. The 1 hour was from the start of breakfast, maybe counting from the end of meals would be better?
Click to expand...

This is what I think is going on.
  • Our liver overnigh converts excess protein into glucose then stores it as glycogen. The liver is also storing glycogen whenever there is excess blood glucose.
  • Shortly before our body expect us to get up, our liver converts glycogen into blood glucose, so that our muscle can increase their store of glycogen. (Needed for hunting etc)
  • As our muscle have a high level of insulin resistance (have or at high risk of Type2) our muscle take a long time to take up the glucose in the blood. Hence high fasting BG reading.
  • Our muscles are still taking up this glucose while we have breakfast. (In a normal person this process would have ended before getting up.) Hence BG is still going down.
  • When we eat breakfast even more insulin is released, this happens before the food gets converted into BG. Hence eating is making BG go down more.
  • Then the food is converted into BG at about the time our muscles are filled with glycogen and can’t take up any more BG.
Hence the fewer carbs at breackfast the better and measing BG before and after brackast to see how many carbs you can eat does not work. (It works for all other meals.)
 
ringi said:
This is what I think is going on.
  • Our liver overnigh converts excess protein into glucose then stores it as glycogen. The liver is also storing glycogen whenever there is excess blood glucose.
  • Shortly before our body expect us to get up, our liver converts glycogen into blood glucose, so that our muscle can increase their store of glycogen. (Needed for hunting etc)
  • As our muscle have a high level of insulin resistance (have or at high risk of Type2) our muscle take a long time to take up the glucose in the blood. Hence high fasting BG reading.
  • Our muscles are still taking up this glucose while we have breakfast. (In a normal person this process would have ended before getting up.) Hence BG is still going down.
  • When we eat breakfast even more insulin is released, this happens before the food gets converted into BG. Hence eating is making BG go down more.
  • Then the food is converted into BG at about the time our muscles are filled with glycogen and can’t take up any more BG.
Hence the fewer carbs at breackfast the better and measing BG before and after brackast to see how many carbs you can eat does not work. (It works for all other meals.)
Click to expand...
Thanks Ringi, very useful advice. I shall buy some eggs to substitute for my usual rather carby breakfast. I just tested about 2 hours after lunch - 3.9.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
I always time my testing from the first bite. I believe this is the recommended way although some do it differently. If looking for trends, as you are, then all that matters is consistency.

There is nothing unusual in seeing a lower number after eating breakfast than your fasting number before breakfast. Fasting numbers can be influenced by many different things including your liver dumping glucose, and it could well be you were on your way down from this fasting number. It could also mean you have a very good first insulin response.

The combination of foods eaten will determine the timing of your peaks. It isn't set in stone that we peak at an hour, or even at 2 hours. Low GI foods will peak later, fatty meals will often peak later, and high protein meals have a mind of their own. Normally my peaks are about 90 minutes, but can sometimes be at 2.5hrs .
Click to expand...
Thanks so much for these illuminating comments. I can see I will lhave to do an awful lot of testing to find out what is going on with ME, but not til I am better at it and my fingers are less sore!
 
Alexandra100 said:
Thanks so much for these illuminating comments. I can see I will lhave to do an awful lot of testing to find out what is going on with ME, but not til I am better at it and my fingers are less sore!
Click to expand...

It is a big learning curve, and yes, it does require a lot of testing until you know what is happening and how to control things. Once you have "arrived" you can relax the testing, perhaps down to once or twice a day.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
It is a big learning curve, and yes, it does require a lot of testing until you know what is happening and how to control things. Once you have "arrived" you can relax the testing, perhaps down to once or twice a day.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's my hope. At least I'm over the huge hurdle of the first test, which I have been dreading. I'm never at my best fasting and I may have spent an hour before breakfast struggling with a lancet gun that immediately stopped working, fingers that were punctured as if by a machine gun but refused to bleed, Error 4 messages and wasted strips. I'm so glad I ordered extra strips and a spare gun. I have already used up all the strips that came with my free monitor. It took 2 just to do the initial test to see if the machine was working, and another strip disappeared down a crevice in my bathroom and is gone forever. Efforts to retrieve it just led to having to wash my hands all over again. I have the impression that my second gun is already losing its spring. I'm wondering if the ones you pay for are after all worth the investment? What would I do without all the support on this forum???
 
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