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What should my blood glucose be?
Diabetes UK currently recommends the following targets:
| Everyday blood glucose | |
| Before meals | 4-7 mmol/L |
| Two hours after meals | No higher than 10 mmol/L |
| Long-term blood glucose HbA1c* | 7.0% or less |
| *Your long-term blood glucose average is masured by an HbA1c test, which your doctor or nurse will organise for you. It is a measure of how well your blood glucose has been controlled in the past six to eight weeks. | |
These are general guidelines - your nurse or doctor can give you targets that will work for you.
Keeping to these targets could significantly reduce your risk of developing diabetic complications. Some people may find their target levels difficult to reach immediately. Do not get depressed about this. Any improvement could be beneficial.
To try and improve your blood glucose levels you need to regard yourself as your own laboratory. You can try a few simple experiments to see how they affect your blood glucose.
Testing your glucose
You can test your blood glucose with your blood glucose meter. It only takes a few seconds. You should follow the instructions that came with your meter.
How to reach the blood glucose target
First spend a couple of weeks finding out exactly what is happening to your blood glucose levels:
- Test your glucose levels immediately before and two hours after each meal on two days a week
- Choose one weekend day and one weekday - eating and exercise patterns are often different during the week and at weekends
- Test twice a day on al the other days, choosing different times of the day each time
- Write your results in your monitoring diary
- Download them to your computer using the software that can be obtained from Abbott Diabetes Care (0500 467 466)
- Study them carefully
Is a pattern emerging?
Look carefully at your results. Can you see any patterns? Are your levels always low at a particular time of day? Or high after certain meals? Read through the remainder of this book and you will find a lot of possible explanations for the patterns in your blood glucose. When you understand what is causing the highs and lows, it is easier to correct them.
Then, in the future, you will be able to use regular, everyday testing to help you to continue to keep your blood glucose well controlled
