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We know spikes are bad, but……

Harebrain

Well-Known Member
Messages
47
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
If I am away from home at lunchtime I tend to eat rather too many carbs. Don't ask why here, just accept it for now please. Maybe another thread will talk about that. Anyway. Pre lunch my BG was 5.6. Quite happy with that. At that time I take 40mg of Glick. At one hour in my BG has spiked to 13.9. However following 45 mins of brisk exercise my 2 hour BG is 5.4.

Whilst admitting that this us not a good scenario, can anyone give me real evidence, not just theories, or blocks of impenetrable verbiage as to what damage I might have caused in that time.

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can anyone give me real evidence

To that specific jump? No. Anything else?
 
Don't test 1 hour after food. Discard those readings and test only at 2 hours after eating. According to what you've written there, pre-meal is 5.6, 2 hours after is 5.4 - you're absolutely fine.

Wait for 2 hours after you've eaten before testing <3

Sock
 
The one hour test was only to get the size of the spike not something I do as a norm, just trying to ok or not the carb intake.

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I disagree. We don't want those large spikes ever. Those are the nasties. Better to be a tad high and level without quick spikes and drops. Steady, low and slow.
 
Nobody knows what a specific number will do to a specific person as we are all individuals, but avoiding jumps when you can will probably turn out to be a good thing in the long run.
 
Kristin251 said:
I disagree. We don't want those large spikes ever. Those are the nasties. Better to be a tad high and level without quick spikes and drops. Steady, low and slow.
Click to expand...
I think this is what @Harebrain meant. This is often repeated and sounds reasonable but is there actually any proof? After all non-diabetics spike albeit less and for shorter periods.
 
I was quoting commonly-given advice from lots of sources. If we all checked our BG an hour after eating, we'd mostly all be hysterical with anxiety.

On top of that, we don't know the OP's last HbA1c, diet, targets or, really, anything. We all spike 1 hour after eating - it's precisely why we don't test at 1hr: to give our bodies time to do something with the food we just ate. 2 hours is considered the length of time it takes non-diabetic people to return to a normal BG level, and we compare our bloods to their normal function, taking into account our own baseline (HbA1c) and targets. Plus, the OP stated that they had a carby lunch (and didn't want us to explore that).

Given they'd described their lunch as carby - and that a non-diabetic would likely have similar readings - I expressed an opinion that their BG was within reasonable ranges and not to be worried about. I still believe this to be correct. If the OP was following a low-carb diet, then, sure, peaks like that could be up for discussion. But Harebrain was very clear that he didn't want to discuss why he's eating what he's eating, just the spike.

Given a high-carb lunch, that spike seems normal. The ins and outs of long-term health implications are a different discussion and I'm sure the OP is already aware of them, given the title of this thread.
 
I have no scientific links but I can speak to what it does to me in the short term.
I get tired, irritable and dizzy. The longer I am in the healthy range with my BG the more sensitive I become to large spikes.
After years of feeling like **** I want to avoid feeling like that again.
 
When do you take your glic? - its usually morning and (for some) nightime - presumably to pump up a level of insulin in the body
Either way Glic is meant to be taken at least 20mins before food - again so as to stimulate some insulin prior to eating which should help a bit with spikes.
Everything ive ever read in medical journals, relates the development of complications to sustained high blood glucose over significant periods of time ( weeks / months rather than days / hours / minutes) rather than short term spikes. I dont interpret that as saying spikes are fine but I do interpret as saying that significant but short lived spikes in blood sugar are less damaging than sustained periods where the body is running lower but still out of range blood sugars.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm happy to discuss my diet but I didn't think it appropriate to do that here. However I follow a moderate carb diet, roughly 100 to 150 daily with medication. My last HBA1C was 6.

I have medical issues which limit the things that I can eat and hence the high carb lunch.

I know the, anecdotal evidence is to avoid spikes but commonly quoted sources are not the sane as scientific facts. Are there any out there?

Sent from my Lenovo P2a42 using Diabetes.co.uk Forum mobile app
 

Hi @Harebrain,

There is a website I found relatively early on in my diagnosis, even before diabetes.co.uk. It is called Blood Sugar 101 and is by a diabetic named Jenny Ruhl.

On this specific site, Jenny discusses a number of studies linking higher blood sugar peaks to organ damage: http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14045678.php

Hope this helps.
 
I'm sure Jenny Ruhl, the author of blood sugar 101 would have some evidence. The majority of us use the ' not over 2 mmol after meals' rule.

Of you aren't familiar with blood sugar 101 it's an outstanding source for knowledge and understanding levels.
 
Hahaha. Typing at the same time!! Great minds think alike!
 
I take 40mg morning and midday and 80 before dinner. I do try to take it in advance for the reason that you gave.

Sent from my Lenovo P2a42 using Diabetes.co.uk Forum mobile app
 
A brief reading of this seems quite interesting, although most of the studies seem to concentrate on the 2 hour levels which for me are fine

Sent from my Lenovo P2a42 using Diabetes.co.uk Forum mobile app
 
@Hairbrain I know you've said you'd prefer not to discuss diet here, but if I had a spike like that I'd definitely be checking what I'd eaten to see if there was anything in it that might be the cause. The other thing I'd be doing was a another test straight away to see if it was possibly a case of rogue reading and/or mucky (AKA contaminated ) fingers. My personal preference is to avoid giving my poor elderly pancreas too much extra and avoidable work to do, so I work towards keeping my glucose levels as steady and stable as possible - high carb levels can knock me for six...

And I'd disagree with @SockFiddler in that I definitely believe that there are occasions when it's actually very useful to check at 1 hour (and sometimes other times too) to find out how we respond to certain foods. I've probably learned more doing these checks (and also using a Libre sensor occasionally to get a full picture of what's going on 24/7...) than if I'd simply relied on pre and 2 hours post meal tests all the time. It really depends on what we want to discover from testing (e.g.so we can adapt our diets accordingly if required) rather than just doing so at pre and post meal times because that's what/when we've been advised to do.

Robbity
 
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