Hello All,
Does anyone else find their BG responding differently to the same meal, eaten at the same time, on different days? I eat the same breakfast, and some days my 1-hour reading is in the wonderful 130s, and sometimes its in the 180s. I dont get it. I’m trying so hard to keep testing (10+ times a day) to understand what I can safely eat, but my body has turned on me, and wont respond reliably to food. Anyone else experienced this, and what do you do about it? Thanks in advance!
yours in frustration,
Tahira
Hi Bruce, thanks for replying! I really need to try not to see the numbers as a personal indictment. I’ve been T2 for 6 years, and sometimes feel I’ve learned nothing!
Yes, it happens to me. My breakfast is generally 2 pieces of brown toast and meat - ham or bacon, and the two hour reading can be up either 7 or 28.9!!
I am not sure what it is all about - sometimes I do not have much more than a salad for supper and a sandwich for lunch the day before. It could be to do with how much insulin I have had the day before, or it could be to do with something like a simple infection. I think what I should do, and do not, is to put my insulin in a bit earlier and then wait for breakfast. I generally have a 10 minutes walk before breakfast, perhaps I should take the insulin at home and then walk to breakfast and then test and eat and test again. I used to be diligent about testing, but I am not so good now. All these things I am telling you are musings and perhaps I should take my own advice! It is very frustrating, I know!
In many cases, I think that I see overlap from one meal to the next. I recall from your other thread that you aren’t taking insulin other than “homegrown” but if I eat a huge lunch, I’m taking a huge shot, a lot of times I’ll “overshoot” it a bit, run lowish, sometimes before the huge (and often greasy, since in the US big food often includes some sort of fried meat/ potatoes/ both…) meal “hits” so the numbers can go up and down more significantly than if I were to be more moderate. I am not totally familiar w/ T2 but a lot of posters suggest that lower carb inputs can help them achieve smoother results. If you’ve been T2 for 6 years, there may be some progress with the disease, in which case a more aggressive approach might be warranted? Sorry I can’t give you more specific advice than that but I know there’s some other meds out there but I’m not sure how readily available they would be in your market?
Hello! I suspect the meds are all available, but they do cost a fair bit. The thing is I seem to have successfully brought the numbers down from the mid 200s to an average of about 140 at the moment, by aggressively cutting and counting carbs, but lately I’ve noticed that the same meals which helped brings the numbers down a few weeks ago are now spiking higher after two hours. I’ve also just realized that my endo is affiliated to the ADA, so am a bit suspicious of the numbers he recommends ( <180 2 hours pp).
It may well be progress with the disease.
and potatoes, swoon!
I have the same problem and mentioned it to my endo, his response… “Everyday is a new day with diabetes, what you did yesterday may not work today.”
Welcome to the crazy wacky world of diabetes! I know what you mean; I work too on accepting that I don’t always have control of my numbers, but that’s so counterintuitive! I agree that you might be at a point (six years is a long time on just diet and exercise…congratulations!) where you need meds of some sort. I agree that the doctor’s recommendations of under 180 at 2 hours is too high. I aim for under 140 as that is when they say damage begins to accumulate, and under 120 is even better.
As for meals, I don’t eat low carb, but eat moderate/low. I find that if I get into the range of 50 carbs or more for a meal, that my results are less predictable (and that is with insulin!). Meals that are both high carb and high fat give even less stable results. By the way you would laugh at the little teeny weeny paratha I made last night to eat with curry. Better a little one than none!
Happens to me all the time. Sometimes I can figure it out (my menstural cycle, changes in weather, the effect of stacking my insulin intentionally or by accident)…other times, it’s a complete mystery. Like you, I try to eat roughly the same thing at each meal. Granted, this makes my diet extremely boring, but it allows me to figure out the effect of other variables. But there are just so many things that impact my BSLs that most of the time it’s a complete mystery.
It happens to me too…The only advice I can give is just accept that diabetes is a temperamental disease you can do everything and it still produces high BG’s. So rude…Know you cant control it fully, take a breath and just keep doing the best you can…
My level of exercise seems to make a big difference. If I slack off, my numbers will suffer. To get back on track quickly I can increase my exercise. I usually walk about a mile per day, so I will walk my usual mile and then do another later the same day. Early morning exercise often causes a rise so I don’t walk before 11AM. For me I seem to get the most benefit from exercising before a meal, but I know others seem to have the opposite effect. Your meter will tell you what works best for you.
I would never laugh at another’s paratha! glad you can have them, however tiny.
I do take meds, metformin and the Indian equivalent of Januvia. Its hard to accept that, with all the testing and worrying and carb-counting, you STILL may not have control over D. sigh. Though I have managed to bring the numbers down fairly substantially in a few weeks, so maybe I just need to stop obsessing.
I never thought of all those factors, thanks! Glad I’m not alone in being mystified.
I hate that it happens to you too, because it makes things just a little bit harder to deal with, but I’m glad you let me know, because its so hard not to feel you’re just failing at looking after yourself in spite of your best efforts. Thank you!
There are lots of things that affect your blood sugar, even if you are non-diabetic. I found that the best confidence in figuring out what was going on came from “controlled” testing and averaging over a number of readings.
And remember, these things take time. It took me a year to really figure out the whole diet thing and get my readings down into target range. I know you want to “fix” this, but this is about figuring out what works in the long-term and making lasting changes. You can do this, it will be hard, but with patience you will figure all of this out.
As everyone else has already put it, yes it happens to all of us and the variables are limitless. I find it greatly affects me what I ate in the last 36-48 hours. Also, maybe one day you took 3209 steps at work and the next only 1500. It is crazy but it also a great balancing act once you get it right every so often. Keep at it.