Blood sugar levels, when do you test yours? In this post, we are going to discuss blood sugar levels, test times, targets, spikes in blood sugar levels and spike testing; a tool that many have found useful in managing gestational diabetes and diabetes in pregnancy. Blood sugar levels are constantly changing. A spike in blood sugar levels is the highest peak your blood sugar levels reach after eating or drinking. When blood sugar levels spike, this sends a signal in our body to process the glucose, using insulin to break it down into our cells and convert it into energy. However, with gestational diabetes, we can not do this as well as we normally would. This means that we can end up having higher blood sugar levels than we should which in turn can cause complications in the pregnancy. How do high blood sugar levels impact the baby? With gestational diabetes, when there is too much sugar in the mother’s bloodstream, this is passed through or ‘fed’ to the baby.
The baby then has to increase its own insulin production to help process the excess sugars. It is adipose tissue (subcutaneous fat) caused by the overproduction of insulin that causes the baby to grow ‘big’. Controlling blood sugars with diet, exercise and some will also need meds/insulin, this helps the baby to regulate their insulin production to normal levels and the rate of growth of the baby’s AC slows whilst the rest of the baby’s growth catches up. This means that the baby returns to ‘normal’ or average growth size. Although there are National guidelines with recommendations that are backed by research as to what blood sugar targets should be used for the best outcomes with gestational diabetes, hospitals and Trusts do not have to follow them. This means that ladies in the UK & Ireland can be given all sorts of different blood glucose monitoring targets and test times. Some may be very strict, others can be very lenient. You could literally go to one hospital and be given one set of targets and test times and the next hospital a few miles away could be dramatically different.
From multiple tests per day before and after all meals and before bed to only being tested at a breakfast club after being given a specific high-carb load breakfast, there are so many different testing regimes given to women diagnosed with gestational diabetes! When do you test your blood sugar levels? Why do I get different readings when I test different fingers one after another, or even when I test the same finger repeatedly? When you test your GlycoMode blood sugar support sugar using a finger-prick test, it is very common to see slightly different readings from different fingers, even when you test them one after another. This does not mean your meter is wrong. Here is why it happens. Glucose is constantly moving through your bloodstream. At any moment, capillary blood in your fingers can show small natural variations. The body is always adjusting, so identical numbers are not expected. Finger-prick tests measure capillary blood, not venous blood.
Capillary glucose can rise or fall within minutes, especially after eating, exercising, feeling stressed, or when insulin or medication is working. Even a short time between tests can produce a slightly different result. Each finger can have different blood flow at the time of testing. Cold fingers, recent movement, massage, GlycoMode Daily Support or squeezing to get blood can all influence the reading. Excessive squeezing can also mix tissue fluid with the blood sample, lowering accuracy. All glucose meters have an allowed margin of error. Most meters are considered accurate if results fall within about 10 to 15 percent of the true value. This means several slightly different readings can all be technically correct. Very small drops of blood or smeared samples can affect how the strip measures glucose, leading to minor differences between tests. Food residue, sweat, lotion, or hand sanitiser on the fingers can alter results. Even small amounts can falsely raise or lower a reading if hands are not washed and GlycoMode Daily Support dried properly.