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Why Did My Random Blood Glucose Go From 183 to 137 In Only A Hour?

G

Glenninindy

Member
Messages
9
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
How do you do? I am new here, to all these numbers, and have many questions. For instance, 2 hours ago I had my fave breakfast- a cup of roasted almonds and a medium sized orange. Immediately after, I proceeded a random check and meter said 183. I was shocked! Soo.. I checked again an hour later and meter said only 137. This high, then low, happens a lot. Wwwhat is going on?
 
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Your results seem about right for such a high carb breakfast
183 = 10.2 in UK units and 137 is 7.6
Almonds are around 22% carbohydrates, not too bad if you just have a few, no idea how many in your cup full, but I am guessing more than 100g, that would be over 20g of carbs.
The orange, depending how big a medium orange is, about 16grams of carbs. Your breakfast could easily be something like 40g of carbs.
A teaspoonful of sugar has 4g of carbs, so your breakfast was roughly the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar. Pretty sure my levels would have been equally as high with the same breakfast. Although I would have taken a reading just before I ate, to be sure it was my food I was testing and not the dawn phenomenon
 
If you average those two readings you get 160 which is where the true level may lie. If so then the meter has a +/- 15% error band which magically gives you readings of 184 and 136. So cannot claim the meter is inaccurate in this instance.
 
Oldvatr said:
If you average those two readings you get 160 which is where the true level may lie. If so then the meter has a +/- 15% error band which magically gives you readings of 184 and 136. So cannot claim the meter is inaccurate in this instance.
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I agree, did I say it was?
 
Thank-You so much for helping me. Now, may I please have one more answer? 4 hours after breakfast, with nothing to eat in between, my random glucose meter clocks in at 119. Please advise.
 
Glenninindy said:
I see now I must cut down on carb consumption as you plainly said, I ate an equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar! I didn't know all that, EEK!
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Using our meters to test our meals is how we discover what we need to change in our diets, we are all different, have different metabolisms, levels of insulin resistance and our reaction to various carbs can be very individual.
But don't forget to test just before the first bite as well as 2hr afterwards, it's the difference between the two results that tell you what that meal has done to your levels.
 
Glenninindy said:
Thank-You so much for helping me. Now, may I please have one more answer? 4 hours after breakfast, with nothing to eat in between, my random glucose meter clocks in at 119. Please advise.
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119 is 6.6 mmol in our units, that's a perfectly good level, if you are ready to eat again, try to make it a low carb meal.
No bread, pasta, rice, fruit, try to have plenty of protein with some leafy vegetables or salad, add some healthy fats, like butter on your veg or olive oil on your salad. The protein and fat will help fill you up in the absence of carbs.
The test again at 2hrs, a perfect meal would see our pre and post meal levels pretty much the same. Although as @Oldvatr mentioned above, the meters are only accurate to +/-15% so we allow ourselves a margin of 2mmol. So if your 2hr test was say 7. 5 (126 in your units) that could be considered to be in the same range as your 119, when you take the 15% into account.
 
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My example was in extremis and although technically possible it would be very unusual to swing to opposite ends with the same meter, This diabetes malarky is never a precision jobbie, and one needs a touch of cynicism on occasions. The carb content of what we eat as T2D is of paramount interest to us. I have never counted calories in my life but I do take notice of carb content. As @catinahat says, that is the likely cause of your readinga.
 
If your sugar levels rise in the morning for no apparent reason, then it is probably due to the Dawn Phenomenon which is basically you liver boosting your sugar levels to get you up and about. This should lessen as you start to get your levels under control. DP is a fact of life and not something we have much control over. The trick is to empty the liver fat stores so it a) gets used to lower sugar levels generally, and b) runs out of excess stored glucose to dump. Your level of 119 is quite tame and not a problem anyhow.
 
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