Good blood sugar levels

[pael02]

I was diagnosed a month ago with Type
2 diabetes.  I'm not on any meds, but am testing my blood sugar daily.  My average for the last month is 115, is this considered a safe number?  (I'm a 67 yr old woman)

[Super_sally888]

Hi Pael.

Your average number of 115 is reasonable, though it is slightly higher than would be considered non-diabetic. If you can keep your numbers around this level or slightly better is great.  Keep working with your dr as well.

For reference non-diabetic numbers are in the following ranges:-

1. Fasting and before eating:  70 - 95 (in the 80s is considered perfect).
2. Post eating (2 hours or when blood sugar peaks): 90 - 140, but ideally < 120).

To reduce blood sugars you can do the following:-

1. Eat lower carb foods (this will mean avoiding sugar and sweetened foods, less grains, sweets, fruits, and eating more veges).  IF you eat less carbs then you will need to eat a bit more protein and healthy fats.   If you want to look up diet approaches; then this would be paleo or Mediterranean (with less carbs though) approach.

2. Daily exercise.  Brisk walking is ideal.

3. Lose weight if overweight

4. Ask your Dr about metformin / glucophage.  This drug is an insulin sensitizer.  It is very helpful for many with type 2 diabetes.  

[Mindmaster]

To be in the safe you need to be <=100 fasting, 80-120 normal waking, <140 after meals. Every time you go over 140 you are doing damage. Your doctor might say 160 or something is OK, but I've read health websites abroad and elsewhere most would say keep 140 or lower. 115 average is high since that number includes your fasts/wakeup and meals. You actually need to track the fasting and meal averages separate (get a phone diabetes app that will do this). That average is great if it's 2 hrs after meals, terrible if that is your wakeup. That's why the meter averages are terribly unhelpful. You should go to the doctor and get a a1c and a fully battery of tests so they can test your body functions to make sure you aren't receiving any organ damage from having a constantly high sugar like that.

[MHEditor]

Here is some more information on blood glucose ranges and blood sugar testing for you from MedHelp.org and the Sugar Sense app.

http://www.medhelp.org/diabetes/articles/Be-Blood-Sugar-Savvy/1777

If you enter enough data over enough days, our app gives you an average A1C -- this is your 3 month average amount of glucose in your blood. It's likely a better measure than the daily averages from your meter, as Mindmaster points out. Here's a little more about the A1C:

http://www.medhelp.org/diabetes/articles/All-About-the-A1C/1766

Here is a link to download the app, you'll have to copy and paste it into your browser: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.medhelp.sugarsense&hl=en

[WillWho]

115 is great. How many tests per day?

[pael02]

One

[WillWho]

For a few days, track your carb intake. Check BG before a meal and 2 hours after. If your level is back in the normal range, you are doing OK. If they are still high, time to cut carbs. Keep in mind that sugar is a carb.

If you drink soft drinks, stop. No more sweet tea. An occasional treat is fine, just not daily.

Portion control is what most of us find works best. Veggie carbs and most fruit carbs are better for you than cake or candy. Meats are essentially no carbs. Potatoes and rice are OK but in very small servings.

I eat one salad a day and avoid dressings high in carbs. If I am going to be more active than normal, I may replace the salad with something with a low carb count.

Diabetics that use insulin and increase their activity level find that they use less insulin. Playing video games is not being active. Walking around the block is great. You are not focused so much on burning calories as you are focused on converting carbs to sugar to be used by the body for energy.

One of my Scouts is Type 1. At weekend and week long camps, his daily bolus and then meal insulins were creating dangerous 2 A.M. lows. I cut his bolus amount by 25% and meal units by 50%. During the day he would start feeling low at meal times. The rest of the time his BG levels were near perfect. It took him just a few camping trips before he had the epiphany that more physical activity meant less insulin and much better BG control.

[Occams_Razor]

As a podiatrist we see alot of poorly informed physicians making erroneous decisions from a widely variable daily BGL. As previously mentioned a diagnosis and quantitative assessment is depended on your HbA1c on two separate occasions.