Same food, different BG results?

[doctordun]

I eat a bowl of oatmeal about 3 times a week for breakfast.
It's 26 carbs.
On one day, I test 2 to 3 hours later, I get 94bg.
The next time, testing about 3 hours later, I get 140bg.
And of course I get everything between.
It's confusing when I'm trying to gauge the effects different foods have on my BG.
Is 2 hours after meals optimal? Sometimes I test 2hrs, 3hrs, 4hrs later and get wildly different readings.

[fgummett]

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Diabetes :D

Eat the same things, do the same activities, same medications, everything the same and yet... lo and behold get different blood sugars!

You just do the best you can. Also bear in mind that home testing has a 15% margin for error (see recent thread discussing that) : http://www.diabetesforums.com/forum/monitoring/26751-different-meters-different-results.html

- Frank

[princesslinda]

Doc, it is certainly possible to get different readings with the same foods....which can sometimes be quite frustrating.

Let's say just for an example that oatmeal will cause your blood sugar # to be 30 points higher 2 hrs after a meal than the pre-meal #...your 2 hr number would vary daily based on your pre-meal #. Oatmeal is full of fiber which might cause your blood sugar to rise more slowly, so your 3 hr might in this case be higher than the 2 hr due to this.

Blood sugars change throughout the day...and can be affected by time of day, exercise, meds, stress....you may never have 2 exact readings with the same foods.

I think the reason we are told to check 2 hr readings is that in a non-diabetic, at 2 hrs the blood sugar would usually be back to pre-meal status...and we strive to be as close as possible to non-diabetic #s. I also think its good to occasionally check a 1 hr and 3 hr like you're doing, just to see whats going on at that point.

[morrisma]

The fun is trying to determine the trend. If you are 100 pre-meal and rising, you need a little extra insulin. If you are 100 and falling, a little less. That's the "art of diabetes" and that's why I'm trying to convince my insurance to let me have a cgms unit but so far, nada.
Mike

[kgm0612]

I tend to eat the same food every morning....... either light wheat toast or a light wheat english muffin. I get different readings every time! I hate this disease! LOL

Karen

[owlyn]

Welcome to our world. It's not any easier for T1s. I eat the same thing every morning, same activity level, same amount of insulin. Some days it works perfectly, and other days it makes no sense. Just do the best you can.

[lottadata]

Are you getting the same portion every time? Measuring by eyeball with cereal can be deceptive.

If you have a food scale, it might be worth throwing your cereal bowl on it and then filling it to see how much oatmeal you are really getting. When I've done that with foods that give the nutritional information in cups, I've often found what I thought was the 1/2 cup portion of something that was 20 g for half a cup was really the 40 g portion that checked in at 35g!

That kind of variation could make a difference. Oatmeal pushes my blood sugar up very very fast, and just a bit more than I thought I was getting would make a difference in the blood sugar I would see after eating it.

I had this happen with some homemade bread last week. It was much denser than what you buy in a store, so I bolused for a bit more than usual and saw a miserable high 90 minutes later. I figured later it must have been a couple ounces heavier than I thought it was. And that's a LOT of carbs.

[doctordun]

No scale, just a measuring cup......supposed to be 26 grams for a half cup. If I was off too much, my oatmeal would have been more like cement.

[sparrow1]

I am so glad to see this thread. Just when I think I have a handle on this disease and on weight management then everything changes.

I had 1/4 cup steel cut oats porridge (i.e., made from 1/4 cup uncooked) last week and BGs went up 4 mmol/L. Two days ago BGs went up 3 mmol/L; same amount yesterday, raised it 2 mmol/L and same amount this morning BGs went down 1 mmol/L. I have the same issue with kidney beans. Just had chili for lunch and no rise in BGs.

I have been on a strict low GI and heavy exercise regimen for 4 months now to control sugars and to lose weight. It's like chasing a moving target. Apart from 6 pounds lost in the first month (recently gained on long cruise) I have lost no weight or inches since. So now I am trying to lower my carbs - having grains only once a day - either porridge or toast. My doctor keeps telling me it's the insulin that causes me to be resistant to weight loss so I am trying not to bolus unless I am high to start with or if I have a "treat" - so far no treats, but it's only been 4 days.

Sorry - I have rambled off the thread. Was feeling as though I had somehow lost the control I felt I had. DF is a fabulous resource for helping me realize that there is no formula that works 100% of the time. Hard to take though.

[Alice]

Yes...when you check your glucose before eating it's often like the stock market...you're either on your way up...or on the way down. Sometimes we hit the even plateau for a while if we are having a perfect D day with bolus amounts.