Say WHAT????!!!!

[Scrabblechick]

O.K. FBG this a.m. was 105. Good deal. No problem. Ate my usual South Beach bar for b'fast. Tested before lunch at home, about 4 hours PP. 104. Excellent. Ate VEGETABLE SOUP for lunch, along with five Wheat Thins, a few (literally) croutons and like, four small pretzel sticks. Checked my BG 2 hours PP. 178! No way!! Checked it again. 170. Nothing doing. Washed my hands again, checked it on the other hand. 169. I've had my meds today. My Aviva has been running high, I know. I wonder if this is what this is, or if my BG is really that high. I just don't see how, with veggie soup and a few crackers and croutons! We're not talking half the bag here. Maybe five. This is the highest I've tested since I've been diagnosed. Highest otherwise was 170--after Chinese food.
Does this sound right, or am I looking at a funky meter? I've eaten this soup before with good results, eaten each other thing before--no problem. What gives? Any ideas?

[davef]

Have you eaten the soup with the other things? Is it a combination of the carbs in all the items together?

[princesslinda]

I'm betting it was the pretzels.....When first diagnosed I thought it would be a healthy thing to eat. I had a handful of the small ones....felt "odd" afterwards, all tired and heart pounding....checked and had a really high reading. I've tried a few since then and found that's one thing I absolutely cannot eat...and I LOVED pretzels!

[Scrabblechick]

Could be, but I've eaten pretzels before with no ill effects. Checked it just now: 150. Go figure. Still way higher than I want it to be. I have eaten the soup with the other things. Combined, we're talking about maybe, a MAX of 30 grams of carbs-- and that's being very generous. Maybe it was the pretzels. I dunno. Very, very frustrating. And I haven't felt weird like I do when I've overloaded on carbs. Bizarre.

[RandallFlagg]

I know I'm fairly lucky. I'm able to eat most everything I did before being diagnosed in 12-07. I only gave up all the regular sodas, candies and other sugar foods. I use meds, but can usually do okay with watching my diet.:D The one food I have found to really shoot my #s up is Campbell's soup. I don't know what's in it, but the 3 times I tried eating soup my numbers after 2 hours where over 200.:eek: So no soup for me as of now. Since getting my sugars down, I usually wake around 80-95 fasting and 110-135 after eating. If I vary a little I take a quarter tablet of glyberide and thats about all I need to shoot that number down. Sometimes it goes down too much and gives me an awful frontal headache. A hard piece of candy can make that go away. Otherwise its 2 Metformin 500 a day, 1 am and 1 pm. So IMO at least for me, it's the soup.

[Evermont]

Yeah, crackers+croûtons+pretzels ... that would do it to me.

Expect the unexpected sometimes too. Diabetes throws curve balls at you sometimes, or so I hear.

Also consider crackers+croûtons+pretzels+stress?+sickness?+infec tion? ... they could all add up on you.

Try the exact same combo of foods next week, see if you can repeat it.

[Scrabblechick]

Don't think I WANT to repeat it, Keith. LOLOLOL. Actually, my exec. editor is out sick today so my stress level is much lower than usual here at work. Maybe it's residual from dealing with my sister over the weekend. Heh.

Guess I'll just keep a closer eye on that sort of thing. I'll check it again in about 30 minutes and see what it's doing.

[shutterbug]

Did you check with another meter?

[Janlaton]

I also have trouble with some pretzels. Not sure why but some brands send me way up while others I tolerate well. I think it must be in the preservaties. Did your soup have onions in it? Onions can make my blood sugar stay up for days after I eat them, literally. They are very high on the glycemic charts.:(

[xMenace]

I'm guessing liver dump.

If I skip breakfast, I'll get a whopping dump at lunch. Maybe something similar happenned to you. Was the bar a smaller meal than normal? Do you normally eat a snack? Were you dehydrated? Time of the month? Feeling sick yet?

The soup is suspect too. Do you really know its carb content?

[Evermont]

Don't think I WANT to repeat it, Keith. LOLOLOL. ...

I would risk setting an all-time high just once in order to learn what to avoid all the time. But if you're not comfortable with that then sure, skip the experiment.

...Onions can make my blood sugar stay up for days after I eat them, literally. They are very high on the glycemic charts.:(

This seems backward to me - high glycemic index means it releases sugars faster, not slower. I've never heard of any food that could effect BG for more than 6-8 hours. In myself I've never had a high last for more than 5 hours. But hey, we're all different right? This one just surprises me.

[Janlaton]

Yeah, Mother always said I did things backwards. But let me eat onions in anything and it will take 2-3 days for my bg to come back down to my norms. I have tracked every thing else in my diet and that is the only thing that really messes me up. When I mean I track I literally write down every ingredient in every item to see if there is something hidden that I am not thinking about but do not find anything. The solution stay away from the onions! I love onions.:mad:

[Scrabblechick]

I can eat onions all day long. They don't budge my BG. It was dry veggie soup. According to the package, 4 grams of carbs per serving. That's 8 grams for 2 bowls.

Could have been a liver dump, though. But I'm still wondering meter. Checked just now, an hour later, 3 hrs PP. 127-138 (four tests). Glad it's down! Whew! But that's still an almighty big drop in an hour, without me having walked around the building or anything.

I don't have strips for either of my other meters, and in any case, I'm at work and don't have my others with me. I've been saying that, after I work through this batch of test strips, I'm going to try my Ultra2 and see what kinds of results I get from that one.

This just freaked me out. Thanks VERY much for all the advice and thoughts. I really, really appreciate you guys caring about this. :)

[parrotletzoo]

have you considered the fat content of the soup. Higher fat content will slow down digestion and could result in your blood sugar peaking at a different time then you are used to. This happens to me with pizza. I can eat the same amount of carbs in a different meal and 2hrs be in target range but if I've eaten pizza it will be elevated longer.

Just something to consider

[owlyn]

30 grams of carb would send my bg up 60 points. I'm a T1, but it's still possible for you.

[Scrabblechick]

Back down to 102, 2 hours PP and after a 25-minute walk. It was 112 right before I ate supper. Go figure.

[davef]

Guess Diabetes is consistently inconsistent!

[jacobsam622]

Did the soup contain cooked carrots? For some unknown reason cooked carrots have a lot more carbs then raw carrots.

[Evermont]

...For some unknown reason cooked carrots have a lot more carbs then raw carrots.

Cooking makes more of the nutrients in carrots "bioavailable". Normal digestion isn't enough to work its way through a raw carrot before the carrot works its way through you.

This has to do with the structure of certain foods particularly cellulose and other indigestible fiber. These are all classed as carbs, but if you can't digest them, thats where you get to subtract the fiber from the total carb count. Cooking carrots make more of it digestible.

Additionally carrots have some natural sugars, yet another kind of carb, a 'faster' kind. Still, I would be a little shocked to find that carrots were to blame here.

There are a few other examples besides carrots which are exceptions to the rule "better for you with less heat (cooking) applied", I'm looking for a list (or making one myself).