Will my obsession wain

[andcol]

Hi all,
I have for the last 2 months become rather obsessive with testing my blood glucose levels. I have started to profile my levels in detail after I eat and exercise as in the example picture below for which I took readings every 15 minutes. I find taking the readings just before and at 2 hours isn't enough and I like to also take at 1 hour and if I am still not back to normal (below 6) at 2 hours then I test after some exercise - Also need to see the rate of change around the 2 hours which may require more than one reading to understand if I'm going down or up. This is because I have found some foods where the BG levels don't start rising until just before the 2 hour point (especially when I have a magnum ice cream which I did on this occasion) although everything always seems to have settled by 3 hours

I also have a spreadsheet where I record every reading and integrate the data to determine the average BG over time (much more accurate than using the average of the points as I take far more shortly after I have eaten). My average for this month and last month (when I started testing) is5.5mmol/l which gives me a current estimate of my HBA1C of 32 (5.1%). (I know it will be higher than this because I have know idea what happens outside my testing periods like over night and nor do I know what it was like in my first month after diagnoses (January)

I know I am obsessed atm so how many of you were obsessed as well just after you became diagnosed and how quickly did you go back to appropriate levels of obsession?

PS Hope you like my numbers on a not very diabetic friendly meal, but I just have to indulge once a week - don't tell my

 

[mo1905]

There's a fine line between good diabetes management and obsessive testing is very fine. At least you're putting the results to good use lol ! Many people test and fail to act on the results or don't actually understand the them which is pointless. I guess it's normal to test a lot early in diagnosis to understand how certain foods/exercise affect levels. Maybe you will cut down a little once you have settled on a suitable diet/lifestyle.


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[michaeldavid]

Test quasi-obsessively, by all means.

But use ALL means: use visionally read strips, too.

They're far cheaper, to begin with. And they can be cut with scissors, making them cheaper still.

Glucoflex-R are available from your chemist.

http://www.betachek.com/uk/

I tend to use the meter only first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

And I tend not to eat steak& kidney pies, puddings, nor chips.

 

[andcol]

There's a fine line between good diabetes management and obsessive testing is very fine. At least you're putting the results to good use lol ! Many people test and fail to act on the results or don't actually understand the them which is pointless. I guess it's normal to test a lot early in diagnosis to understand how certain foods/exercise affect levels. Maybe you will cut down a little once you have settled on a suitable diet/lifestyle

Or when my wife's dream of the end of my fingers falling off becomes true

They're far cheaper, to begin with. And they can be cut with scissors, making them cheaper still.

Not seen these before. I have an SD codefree meter and I get 250 test strips for £25 from homehealth-uk and get them cheaper still if you buy 500 at a time. My Dr prescribed me 50 for my Aviva Accu-Check but that were really expensive strips ~£20 for 50 so changed meters and found that the SD measured slightly higher by 0.2 mmol/l

do you cut the strips lengthways and how many do you get out of a strip (can you get 3 out of a strip)

And I tend not to eat steak& kidney pies, puddings, nor chips.

I know I shouldn't but I have to fill my 90-150g carb a day with something and after my meagre amount of porridge, one slice of bread, handful of raspberries and blueberries an apple and sometimes a small banana there is a lot left

I don't have the amount of chips I used to instead of a plateful it is now between 75g and 100g only (between 4 and 6 big chips). However the Magnum is pure naughtiness. They were left over in the freezer since before my diagnoses and I'm the only one that will eat them as they are almond ones so I have had one each month so not too naughty. Plus only one to go and then that will be my last

 

[michaeldavid]

Okay, the sticks you use are cheap at ten for a quid.

Each of the visually read strips can be cut into 4, or even 5.

I think that works out at around 2p per test. So that's very cheap.

But what I really like about them is that they give me feeling. (Or at least, I feel that they do.) A digital display doesn't have much feeling.

One needs to be pretty well controlled to make best use of them. For anything over 8mmol/l, they're not too accurate. But for low readings especially, I find them to be very accurate indeed.

I might say that my rye-based diet helps me tremendously to safely stay near normal in terms of blood sugar for 24 hours.

 

[Andy12345]

i used to test obsessively, but once you know what the foods you eat do to bg it becomes pointless as you know what number you will have before you do it, i havent tested in over a week right now for instance, but on saying that if i ate a magnum i would test before and after the punches in face id be giving myself


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