Hi,
Does anyone have any advice as to how I manage this more easily. Often on the morning of the blood test I wake with a low BSL and have to eat - then cancel. Or its too high. So frustrating...any tips?
Thanks for replying. I use an animas pump. Maybe I just risk a high reading on the mornings of the test.
Fasting can definitely be tricky, but your pump should give you all the tools you really need to deal with fasting BGs. With a dialed in basal rate, hypothetically speaking, you should have stable BG numbers all the way through the am until you can dose for your breakfast.
If you're having issues with stable am BGs in general, I'd suggest a round of basal testing to lock those numbers in as best you can.
I don't do anything particularly special the night before blood tests that require fasting. For me, that's a lipid panel usually every six months. I'm not actually sure which tests require fasting outside of a lipid panel. None of the other standard tests for diabetes require fasting.
Regardless, since it's generally only an 8 hour fast, that does give you some wiggle room to lock in your overnight numbers before going to bed. Again, hypothetically speaking, if your basal rate is dialed in, if you have stable BGs going into bedtime, you should have stable BGs waking up.
Good luck!
A fasted hypo is usually pretty easy to treat and doesn't require overtreating to be safe. Using precise glucose tabs to address hypos is perfectly fine when preparing for a fasting blood test. Just make sure that you don't overdo it. A single dex4 tab is 4g of glucose which would raise you 20-40 mg/dl. Even more precise, use "smarties." 6g a role of pure glucose and each "tab" is 0.6 g carbs. The goal is to restore a "normal fasting blood sugar" (70-110 mg/dl).
ps. What I actually find strange is if you are fasted and have a "high" blood sugar (i.e. > 110 mg/dl), that can also messes up your cholesterol test often resulting in high triglycerides. But nobody yells at you about having the test with a high.
A BG test around 2 am can also help you to know what to expect in the morning, you might be able to correct and have a nice BG when you wake up.
I had no idea a momentarily high BG could mess up cholesterol results ... I will make sure mine is not high next time I go!
I've never read that a momentary high BG could mess up the triglyceride test - I've always read it is a consistent high BG that messes it up (so if your A1c is high then your triglycerides will be high). Could you give a reference to back up the contention that BG at the time of the test is significant? I'm not saying it isn't possible - just that I've never run across it. Thanks.
I had also thought that it wa sustai ed high that affected results.