I agree. The control-system principals involved boggle my mind!
CQ, do you have blood sugar issues in your family? my mom wasnât diagnosed with diabetes until her 60s, but she probably had it for a while. i would test your parentsâ blood sugar hourly for 1 to 4 hours after eating a meal to see how they do. their a1c might be ok because that is just an average, and if they have some lows (you said hypoglycemia runs in the family) mixed in with some highs, they might have decent a1câs that donât reflect blood sugars that can run high later on like yours do. your numbers arenât diabetic (although they are trending higher), but your parents are older, so they might have worse numbers that havenât been caught yet. better safe than sorry, i always say. and a lot of this is genetic, which is why i recommend the above. if you caught an issue with their blood sugar regulation, they could act to prevent anymore current or possible future damage. my fastings were like yours- never high. it was after eating that they went high. i found it out by chance using my husbandâs meter. i wasnât overweight, so even though my parents were diabetic, they were also overweight, so i thought i was ok. now i know that there are plenty of normal weight prediabetics and diabetics as well as overweight/obese people who do not have diabetes.
make sure to use new needles for each person and wipe off the lancet plastic area as well with antiseptic. iâm not sure which antiseptic is strong enough, however. i just like to be on the safe side all the time.
I donât think I have blood sugar issues in my family except that my dad has hypoglycemia. His grandmother was insulin dependent (no idea what type) and so was one of his aunts (also type unknown but insulin dependent). I have no aunts/uncles or cousins and none of my grandparents had issues. I have tried to test my parents (both in their 70s), but it isnât easy as everyone in my family is a complete ninny about getting a drop of blood from a finger (says the person who was terrified of needles until she could no longer afford to be!). My parents and my sister have all tested fine when I have forced them to check (and I was always much higher). My husband is one of those vastly irritating people who has perfect blood sugar no matter what he eats. Something that would send me over 200 would barely have him in the 90s (weâve seen that happen).
I will keep trying, though. My mother has always had fasting numbers above 100, but her after meal numbers are good (although she is a very low carb eater). I just hope my kids got my husbandâs genes in this area!
This article may help explain the difficulty of controlling your blood sugar perfectly. 22 things that affect BG by Adam Brown at Diatribe:
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That is informative!
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it seems some people with certain diabetic genes can prevent diabetes thru diet and exercise if they start early enough. the thing with pre diabetes is that it is associated with heart disease, and that is something else i would like to avoid or hold off for as long as possible.
That is a good point. Luckily my parents are very serious about taking care of their health and get regular check ups and follow up on suggestions. My mother started getting her A1C checked after I suggested it would be helpful (and my father is the most willing to have me stick him randomly). I just got a large amount of blood drawn yesterday to get everything checked up (from cholesterol and fasting BG to A1C and c-peptide).
Just as an update. I got the results from my blood work last week.
Fasting glucose: 88
fasting c-peptide: 0.75 (low end of normal is 0.8 ng/ml)
A1C 5.9
Total cholesterol 195
Trigs 37
HDL 80
LDL 108
So, things are pretty constant from where theyâve been in the past. My c-peptide is low, but it has been at the low end of normal to lower for the last 18 months at least (never had it checked before that). My A1C is creeping up, but still not bad (and agrees very well with my meter average). Cholesterol is consistent with the past (and I can be happy about that). So, back to not worrying about it until just before my next check in 6 months. Long, slow pathâŚ