If you have diabetes, checking your blood sugar is a great way of being able to instantly tell how your body is responding to your diet, exercise habits and medications (whether pills, insulins, or both).The latest generation of glucometers (finger-stick blood sugar monitors) are easier to use than older ones as they need such a small amount of blood you can test easy and less painful sites such as the forearm or sides of the fingers.
As for how low your sugars should be, the answer is basically as close to normal as possible without going so low that hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) occurs.
Fasting (first thing in the morning and pre-meal sugars should be low enough to reflect good overall blood sugars. After eating, sugars will of course be higher since your body is breaking down your food and absorbing vital nutrients into your blood for use and storage. This includes glucose, or blood sugar.
Good goals to meet are:
Fasting or pre-meal: 70-130
1 hour after eating: under 280
2 hours after eating: under 180
3 hours after eating: under 150
Notice that these goals may vary somewhat depending on the recommendations of various medical organizations (such as here, and here).
Where these recommendations all agree is that the goal is to keep your sugars as close to normal as is possible and safe, so that your are reducing as much as possible the risks of diabetes harming your body.
More coming up on what to do if your sugars are too high, and what are those every 3 month lab tests for?
No comments:
Post a Comment