I’m getting frustrated. I haven’t been diagnosed with anything. My home meter has been high everyday fasting around 140. I have symptoms such as numbness, burning sensations in legs(mostly at night), blurry vision, weak. Eating sugar makes me feel terrible and I’ll be up half the night. My doctor said he didn’t trust blood glucose meters…what? I thought diabetics rely on glucose meters? I bought another glucose meter, different brand to compare. Again, my results were 130 with the new meter and 145 with the old meter. I followed instructions for both meters carefully. At the lab fasting, it was 84 so I am still very confused. Any ideas?
You need to have an A1C done. That is now the standard for diagnosing. One fasting blood sugar is just a snapshot of that moment in time and not terribly significant. But if you are seeing high fasting blood sugars at home on a regular basis, than that is signficant and your doctor should do an A1C which is an average of blood sugars for three months. If your doctor is ignoring both your symptoms and your reported blood sugars (meters do vary, but that’s why the patterns of everday make a difference) than your doctor is an idiot who can’t be trusted to take care of your health. If he won’t take your concerns seriously as well as do an A1C I would get a new doctor or ask to be referred to an endo for diagnosis.
Ditto Zoe: get an HbA1C test. That will give you some good information.
Also test after you consume a known quantity of carbs. For example, after a 12-hour (overnight) fast of nothing but water:
Test
Consume a measured “mixed” food containing a known quantity of carbs (e.g. a packaged cup of soup, four Saltines and a cup of skim milk). Don’t wolf it down but eat it at a steady clip, to complete it within 15 minutes.
Test at 30 minutes (from the start of the meal)
Test at 60 minutes (from the start of the meal)
Test at 120 minutes (from the start of the meal)
If you’re “normal” you should be below 140 at one hour and below 120 at two hours.
You might be in the “metabolic syndrome” zone, aka pre-diabetic. If you were full-blown, untreated type 2, you’d have post-meal readings that are much higher (e.g. over 200) and other symptoms, such as frequent urination and a really irritating, constant thirst.
The only way to really test is with an A1C. Ask your doctor to run that test.
Right, I should have done that. I did take my test with the meter right before I left to go to the lab. It was 150. By the time I got to the lab a hour had passed…my lab result was 84. It makes sense that I burned up sugar prior to the draw so which BG is accurate then? The result from the meter just after waking or an hour or two after waking at the lab?
My A1c a few months ago was 5.5 which apparently is normal? I do have consistent high BG readings at home with two different meters. It’s the symptoms that are upsetting. Sadly, I do understand the incompetence that many doctors share.
Zoe, thank you.
You’re welcome, Crystal; really, you know your own body. Also,you can get an A1C kit at the drugstore and they are just as reliable to do yourself for your own information. But you do need your doctor to get on board and help you assess what is going on with your blood glucose and what to do about it. There are good doctors out there who will treat you with respect.
Yes 5.5 is in the normal range, but things, unfortunately can change in a few months.
Good info, I didn’t know you could buy an A1C kit otc…thanks.
Yes, they are $25 to $30 and contain two tests.
You may also want to ask for an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT). That will show you how you react to a pure glucose solution over 2 hours. Wheat meter are you using? Home meters do have a 10-20% variable, some meters are better than others. Did you only have one fasting lab done, maybe you should have them repeat it with a different lab.
If you are getting a normal a1C but high fasting BG, you should see an endo immediately. a1C gives an average over the past 90 days weighted heaving to the past 30 days. But, consistently high or low BG suggest that at some other time when you are not testing, you are on the other side. In other words, if your a1C were 5.0, equating to a rough BG of 100, yet you are consistently getting 150’s in the AM, there need to be roughly as many hours where your BG is 50 as 150 for the average to come out where it does. That’s just a simple example, so don’t rely on it. However, the point is that you may have a great primary care internist, but that doesn’t mean s/he is a specialist and that’s what endos are trained for and do.
I agree with the others that you need to take your meter to the lab and test at the same time as your blood draw. There are a lot of things besides food that can change your BS. The only way to know for sure if your meter is right is by checking against the lab at the same time.
I am going to disagree with the comments about the A1c - I do agree that it is good to have but it is not the best way to know if something is wrong. April that posts here was told by her PCP that she was not diabetic based on her A1c – it was similar to yours. She knew something was not right and started testing and logging. She was already seeing an endo because of her thyroid so got in with her endo & took her logs in with her. Her endo agreed that things were not right and she was started on meds.
Do what Jean said and test your BS before & several times after a meal. Log your results along with what you ate and how much. Like Mike said, your PCP is not an endo. If you know in your gut something is wrong and your logs support that, get in with an endo.