When can you say, your blood sugars are under control?

When they are consistently stable and predictable and not spiking or dropping quickly. Hopefully with a nice buffer below diabetic levels. How much so may be different from individual to individual.

 

As I'm T2 diabetic - never. I know I will always have to be careful about what I eat and drink.

 

Just as you think they are under control, there always seems to be a surprise round the corner....

 

I agree with @Tophat1900 , the buffer is an important point in my view too. It means that if some stress or other comes along you may still be able to remain within non diabetic levels, as happened with me recently when I had surgery.

 

The next thing I eat could send me up to the mid teens in mmol/l.
Successive meals like that would see me up there (or higher) in the longer term.

I view it as a moment by moment thing, so I am temporarily 'in control' now.
3 hours time? We'll see when I get there.

 

Speaking from the perspective of insulin resistant diabetes - for me personally it’s about low fasting glucose but, more importantly, perpetually low blood insulin concentration. Hyperinsulinemia causes type 2. Hyperglycaemia is merely a symptom of the dysfunction, so for me, I don’t consider good control unless both are normal. And by normal I mean normal, not normal for a diabetic. In my view, blood glucose is an important but overrated metric of metabolic health. As evidenced by the knowledge that by the time it’s too high, you’ve likely already been in a metablic danger zone for several years, and insulin toxicity has probably done you no good at all, irrespective of the blood glucose concentration that your body has been hanging onto by a thread.

It’s all about the insulin for me. Keeping it low at all times is always my mission objective. Others have different standards and expectations which is also fine if it works for them.

 

Never, then!

 

There are good days and there are horrific days, so yeah NEVER!!!!, but if you can keep that hba1c below diabetic with a buffer than that's the next good thing.

 

I think it’s a very personal opinion as we all differ on aims/targets/general life viewpoints.
For me personally, at the moment, I feel I’m in control. I can’t handle the idea of diabetes beating me. Of it controlling my life. Of course to an extent it does - I have to eat a certain way to get my levels but I’ve accepted that as just my life now and most of the time am happy with that. For me I don’t want to see a reading above 5.3 for an FBG and don’t want to be above 6.0 at any other testing time (except 1hr after food which I occasionally still check to see the peak and to ensure that 2hr reading is coming back down and not a false figure)
At present I class my levels as stable as I’ve been within these parameters for a few months now. I’m not naive - a cold next week, work stress next month, my body just changing within itself next year - I’m not under control forever. But I don’t live my life worrying about tomorrow - I used to!! Diabetes has completely changed my outlook on life. When a day comes where I’m not I’ll deal with that then, make adjustments, re-evaluate.
But today I’m in control. Today I’m winning

 

I have a different outlook. I control my diabetes, it doesn’t control me. I want to live and eat a certain way because I enjoy it and it means my diabetes won’t come back

 

I would ask what you mean by "under control"?
As this was posted in a general (non-type specific) sub-forum, I will answer as someone with type 1 diabetes.
It is possible to have what we call "unicorn days": days with no hypos and no hypers. These are days when I would consider my BG to be "under control".
However, as the name "Unicorn Days" suggests, these days are rare.
Some people with type 1 may achieve it through making adjustments to their lifestyle such as changing their diet, reducing exercise, planning everything in advance.
To me, this feels like the diabetes is in even more control.

As someone with type 1 diabetes, I think control is a matter of balance. How much of your life are you willing to give to the diabetes?

 

I’m getting there with that. I’ve spent half of my life fearing getting diabetes. Being afraid of dying young because of it. Yet on diagnosis I decided there and then that I have no idea how long I’m meant to be here but that it wouldn’t be diabetes that sees me off! So yes I guess me choosing to eat this way is me being in control over it

 

That’s the spirit

 

Under control!? As a type 1 diabetic I would say very rarely while awake! As @helensaramay has said the odd "Unicorn" line now and again with no hypos or hypers does occasionally happen. When I am asleep I do get a very straight line since being on an insulin pump and being in control of my basal insulin thru the night (most of the time).
I am happy when I do not get high spikes after eating or horrendous lows when guessing carb content in take-aways.

 

“Control is a matter of balance”. Well said.

 

Another T1 wading in here... from my perspective, I can keep things under very tight control with the aid of a very low carb diet, a tubeless insulin pump amd constant glucose monitoring with alerts on my watch that buzzes my wrist if I get near to going out of range, and I can fix it before it does - most of the time. It’s pretty intensive management but like driving, the mechanics of it become second nature after a while. I can mostly maintain non-D levels while working erratic hours as a supply science teacher and community first responder. Sometimes I think about it a lot, sometimes a little. But it’s worth it (for me) to do that.

Tl;dr - I’d say I have my blood sugar under control. But it’s hard work.

 

Life itself is unpredictable at times.
That variability challenges us all. For those with no endogenous insulin to speak of:
determination; obsessiveness; restriction of life by design or by chance to a very predictable unvarying routine; avoidance of stress; the influence of one's upbringing and way of managing change/stress etc; the input of a an active social life; avoiding or placed to be unlikely to catch colds etc; use of technology; dietary choices; exercise choices; access to the skill of good healthcare providers; and luck can variously to help control BSLs despite some apparent contradictions..
How much or little one does or chooses to do all play a part in the end result.
Be cool about whatever happens.

 

I just wonder to what degree we can say that most of the population have their blood sugar under control?

(Footnote : This is partly a prevention related posting in case it goes unrecognised as such)