I checked my blood sugar for the first time just out of curiosity with one of my friends meters. I just wanted to do a test to see the reaction of eating a sugar alcohol loaded candy bar.
Well, I had 10oz coffee, about 30 mins prior, before taking it the first time and it read 117. I ate the candy bar and it then tested 20mins later and it read 137.
Well, I decided to check it again without eating or drinking a thing this morning and it read 118.
How is that possible? I had had coffee (with cream and stevia) yesterday morning and it read one point less?
I read that 70-100 is normal fasting blood sugar....now Im concerned I have a fasting blood sugar of 118.
Any experts out there????

Hi VickyRenee!

While a fasting blood sugar of 118 is a bit high, I don't think it's anything to panic over. Many things can affect your fasting blood sugar including how close you are to your TOM, whether or not you are sick and how close to bedtime you ate. If you're truly concerned about it, you may want to schedule a visit with your doctor for some further testing just to put your mind at ease including a HgbA1C (or glycosolated hemoglobin test) that will show what your average blood sugars have been over the past several weeks.




This is a bit soon after eating to test. To truly get an idea of how a food affects you, you need to test at 30 minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours after eating (sometimes longer if the food you ate was very high in fat as this will delay the rise in blood sugar by an hour or sometimes 2). A rise of 30-50 points after eating isn't unusual, depending on what you ate. Yours increased by 20 points in 20 minutes and probably continued to climb for about 30-40 minutes after that although I wouldn't hazard to guess how much more. What you need to look at is how quickly your blood sugar returns to normal levels after eating. For the most part, you would want a return to pre-meal levels or < 120 within 2 hours.




Fasting blood sugar readings can very considerably from one day to the next for a whole lot of reasons which is why it's important to look at the average and overall trend.

The good news here is that low carbing is the best way there is to control blood sugars, so even if there is a problem that you weren't aware of until now, you should be able to control it quite well by continuing with low carb. Imagine how much higher those blood sugars would be if you were eating high amounts of carb!

Ok, it has been 1 hour since I had some meat and its been 3 1/2 hours since I tested the first time....it now reads 115. Thats weird to me...being lower than when I woke up!!! I know nothing about diabetes and all the testing stuff. I was just concerned seeing a reading of 118 on fasting. I hadnt had anything to eat or drink since 8:00pm last night (besides water) and I tested at 9:45am this morning.
I will test again in the morning and see. But if it reads 118 again, I will definetely call my doctor and talked to him about it.
I appreciate all your info since I know nothing and its better to talk to someone that knows instead of spending forever trying to find it online somewhere.
My friend said I could use the rest of his test strips since he was getting some more anyway, but I only have 2 left!! How do you suggest I do it tomorrow? I wanted to have some of my yogurt for breakfast.......should I test first thing upon waking and then 1 hour later?
Vicky

Oh, forgot to tell you this.....
TOM was a week ago....I did mention how long it had been since I ate and I havent been sick at all.
I was thinking though, because I did read somewhere, that maybe it has to do with good cholesterol......have you heard that? My HDL is 35 and my LDL is 127. Which I didnt think was good.

To within the error of the meter reading, 115 and 118 are essentially the same number. At best, home glucose meters have a relative error of at least 10%.

That could explain it right there. You tested after fasting for almost 14 hours at which point, your liver is producing glycogen to keep your body going (known in diabeticese as a glycogen dump) which could explain the slightly higher readings. Fasting blood sugars are usually understood to be after 8 hours with no food; any longer than that and you could get a falsely elevated reading due to glycogen production.





Vicky...I really don't think you have anything to be concerned about here. That's an absolutely normal reading, especially 1 hour after eating. Protein isn't likely to raise your blood sugar much, either. It would be better to eat a normal meal with protein, fats and carbs (like veggies) and then test 2 hours afterwards. If it's below 120, you're fine.
My afternoon readings are quite frequently lower than my fasting reading, so that's not necessarily indicative of a problem, either. Try to relax and not get yourself worried over this. As I said before, 118 would only be considered borderline; not even really elevated. Normal (according to my doctor) is between 80 and 110.



You can test when you get up and then 2 hours after you eat breakfast. 1 hour after eating may show you how high your blood sugar gets after eating, but it doesn't tell you if it comes down below 120 when it should (2 hours later) which is what you're really interested in knowing. For those of us who are diabetic, we may want to know how high our blood sugars get after a meal because we wan't to keep our post prandial (after eating) blood sugars below 150. Most diabetics don't even test that...they test fasting, before each meal, 2 hours after each meal and at bedtime and that's only if you are an insulin dependent diabetic. Right now, my doctor only has me testing once a day, alternating fasting one day with a 2 hour check the next (I check after different meals each time).

OK, thanks for going into great lengths explaining it to me, I really do appreciate it because it has been really bothering me! And you are exactly right because I decided to spend the money to get more test strips (I figured my friend could just buy the rest from me since he was gonna buy them anyway) and I tested again. It has been about 7 hours since Ive eaten carbs and it read 80. I also thought maybe his test strips are old because they expire 4/03.
Thanks again for trying to make me not worry so much and for informing me....I am thankful that I dont have to go through all that testing on an everyday basis and has made me appreciate it more.
Vicky

That might have done it, too. Old strips or strips that have been exposed to moisture (kept in the bathroom, for instance) or too much heat can give you erroneous readings.

I'm glad that you were able to put your mind at ease.

VickyRenee:

Maybe I'm a trifle fanatical, but I consider any bg reading >110 to be unacceptably high. My target is 90 around the clock and any time it's over 100 I get concerned and wait to eat anything until it's back down into the normal range (85-95).

The American Diabetes Association calls a fasting reading >110 but <126 "impaired glucose tolerance". My physician calls it "diabetes". She is, however, a most progressive and unusually conscientious doctor. It's a little like alcoholism. If a person drinks a half fifth of Jack Daniels every night and still functions adequately, he'll be labelled a "problem drinker". But we all know what the problem is and that if there is no intervention we'll be calling him something else in a year or two when he's up to a whole fifth a day.

The ADA calls my present condition igt, but the impairment is progressive. If not addressed it WILL get worse. The numbers obtained for my diagnostic glucose tolerance test were 114 fasting and 142 postprandial. Now, about 1-1/2 years later my average reading is 87 and my average fasting reading in the morning is about 98. (It's always higher in the morning than it was when you went to bed because the liver rounds up and filters out all the insulin in the blood just before you wake up. Nobody knows why this happens. It's a process well known to diabetics called the "dawn phenomenon".)

The good news is that these diagnostic standards are changing to more realistic levels. The medical community is waking up to the fact that if there were more concern on the part of both physicians and patients about fasting readings in the low 100s that we would have far fewer undiagnosed diabetics walking around (6 million? 8 million? something like that).

People seem to attach a stigma to diabetes. However, the diagnosis of it in me was the best thing that ever happened to my health. I'm healthier now than when I was 30. (I'm 52.)

Jim

Hi Jim!

Re: "People seem to attach a stigma to diabetes. However, the diagnosis of it in me was the best thing that ever happened to my health. I'm healthier now than when I was 30. (I'm 52.)"

Thanks for that! That's the way I felt when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last year at the age of 44. I still see it that way; I feel better, and am much much healthier (although I haven't solved the weight problem yet).

Unfortunately, the nurse counsellor at my local diabetes clinic was really put out when I vocalized that to her, and seemed to think that I wasn't taking my health seriously if I wasn't devastated. I guess she decided to "wipe the smile off my face": she harangued me with descriptions of the terrible health problems that were awaiting me, and cited statistics that losing weight or keeping my blood sugar under control would not improve my chances much. On average, she said, keeping blood sugar under control reduces the incidence of diabetes-related complications by about 25%, and losing weight has very little effect.

I went away and fell into a depression that lasted many months. Iwa so upset that I couldn't even think about it. When I finally came to, I began to question her statistics: did they include people like me who caught their diabetes relatively early? Did they include people taking modern medications? Did they take into account the severity of complications? In other words, did they really apply to me? Are they even true?

I still would like to have a much better understanding of what is in store for me. I have not found a book or books that sufficiently addresses this. However, I believe that despite what diabetes-related illnesses are awaiting me, I would have died of heart damage if I hadn't started to take my health seriously.

I hope I haven't gone off-track. I am finding this forum to be very liberating. I have been keeping in a whole lot of fears and anxiety for the last 15 months.

Ruth

Maybe this is just my personal style, but I would have challenged her on that right then and there and asked to see published studies that showed that to be the case. If she couldn't produce them, I would have told her to take her scare tactics somewhere else. There's a difference between making sure that a patient takes their condition seriously and scaring them half to death and letting them leave your office feeling like they had better have all their affairs in order ASAP. I'd also be interested in knowing what her definition of 'blood sugar control' was. Most nutritionists and doctors have an unacceptably loose definition of what they consider control.
From what I've read, maintaining "tight" control over your blood sugars is the best way there is to prevent diabetic complications. Having said that, most doctors don't seem to bat an eye when you spike well over 150 after meals and consider that "normal" in a diabetic. For me, that is unacceptable as I know that blood sugar readings over 150 at any time are capable of doing damage at the cellular level.
Losing weight is also VERY helpful in getting and maintaining control over blood sugars as well as reducing insulin resistance. I honestly don't know where this lady is getting her information from. Then again, this same person probably also advised you to follow the USDA food pyramid.

Ruth:

This person works at a DIABETES CLINIC? Anyone who purporting to be a professional health care provider specializing in diabetes who spews such twaddle is no better than an oncologist who smokes.

You need to RUN, do not walk, RUN to the nearest copy of Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution and read it from cover to cover. It will save your life, give you back ALL of the quality of life you deserve and reverse all of your diabetic complications (if you are recently diagnosed).

You can read parts of it on his website.

Jim

Previous message should have been addressed to 'Rufo'. Sorry about that.

Even if you haven't been recently diagnosed, low carbing and maintaining tight control of your blood sugars can and has helped reverse diabetic complications such as neuropathy, and nephropathy. Dr. Bernstein is a good example of that himself.


Ruth...

Being dignosed with diabetes is not a sentence to an early death from diabetic complications despite what this nurse told you. For her to leave you in such a state of despair was inexcusable. The sooner you can get and maintain control, the better, so to answer one of your questions..YES! The earlier it is caught and treated successfuly, the better your chances are.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you that following a low carb WOE to control your diabetes will mean that you are guaranteed to never develop any diabetic related complications, however...it will certainly give you the best odds possible. The alternative (one which that nurse's opinion seems to advocate) would be to give up, do nothing and in so doing practically guarantee that you will develop complications and suffer poorer quality of life and an early death.
Some pep talk she gave you. I would have been furious, too.

Let's just hose her!
What an idiot!
As my Dad used to say, "Why are there more horses' asses than horses?"!