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When should I test BG

Slayer Mum

Active Member
Messages
43
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dr said I don’t need to. I don’t agree so am wondering when is best to do it, how often , and other than getting a number, what do you do with the results in terms of food that I can have on low carb diet.

Also Dr said as my HBa1c is 98 my target would be in 50’s as opposed to normal range. Anyone know why I wouldn’t want to aim for the 40’s.

( i am type 2 newly diagnosed due to steroids and i started metformin)

Thank you
 
Hi and welcome. The usual advice is to test immediately before eating and two hours subsequently. That shows you how your body dealt with whatever carbs were consumed. Carbs when digested turn to glucose. Everyone's blood sugar varies in response to any number of stimuli, but the most influential is probably food.

So the first test gives you a baseline. By the time of the second test your insulin response should in theory have largely dealt with any rise in blood glucose, and you should be at, or reasonably close to, where you started. That's why the usual target is for the second reading to be less than two points higher than the first one, and not higher than 7.8. If the second readings show higher figures it indicates that your system isn't coping with that level of carb intake, and your blood glucose is being unacceptably elevated.

Implication is there's too much carb in that meal for you to handle, and some at least needs to be removed.

You can also test at one hour, three hours, whatever, if you want to see how you respond. This uses up a lot of strips and there isn't all that much knowledge to be gained.

Many people also test first thing in the morning. This is often the highest reading of the day for many of us. It shows the "fasted" level but also often shows you that your liver is attempting to raise your blood glucose by adding more it's made itself. This can take a long time to stop and come down - I was still getting high morning readings long after I was back in normal HbA1c range.

Personally, given a condition like this, I want as much useful information as possible and I would be aiming for normal levels. Steroids are I believe known to raise BG.
 
Most docs believe diabetes is progressive (while it doesn't have to be), so they set low goals. Which says more about their capability to deal with your diabetes, than it says about yours. No reason why you can't aim for a HbA1c in the 30's or 40's.

Like KennyA said, test before a meal and 2 hours after the first bite to see whether that meal suits you. It's a LOT of strips when you first start off, but once you know what foods do what, you can taper off the testing. I went through a massive amount of strips in my first year, now in year 7 I only test when I feel off due to illness/infection or vaccination/steroids, ate something new or somesuch... It won't always stay as expensive as it is at the start.
 
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