Two Hour Testing - Question #1

[seacomp]

Most every source I've run into here and in the professional litterature recommends testing two hours after meals. At least all those, I feel are competant and know what they are talking about. But I have two simple questions about 2 hour testing? I'll outline the question and then what I've come take as the answer, subject to your correction, please.

First the recommendation is specific "two hours" and sometimes even "exactly two hours" after meals. Well, a meal doesn't happen in an instant, a short meal or snack takes 10 to 15 minutes, an ordinary meal a half hour and a formal meal two hours or longer. So the question is two hours after What, or maybe after When.

Here's a timeline for an ordinary meal:
Time Action Comment
0 Test - Time and result written down
3 Inject insulin - insulin 'clock' started
15 First bite - food 'clock' started
30 Middle of meal
45 Last bite

So 2 hours afer the meal is exactly when?

You could find a reason why any of these times are the right one to starting from. I've choosen to time from the first bite, since it's from there that my blood glucose starts rising, but is this right?

[psilocybin]

i heard its by the time you stopped eating. if your still consuming food and you have started your 2 hour count down it wont work... just what ive heard...

[JediSkipdogg]

It's 2 hours from when you finish eating. Insulin doesn't react or work in part with food. It works whether or not food is in your body.

So if you take 5 units of insulin 10 minutes before you eat. It will last 4 hours (rough estimate for humalog) from when you took it. If it takes you 2 minutes to eat, then the food effect will pretty much peak at the same time the insulin does. If you take 2 hours to eat, then the insulin will show you running low 2 hours after taking it until all the food has time to catch up with it.

Basically what the 2 hour testing is for though is to make sure you aren't running high. So if you test 2 hours after first giving the shot, or 2 hours after you finish eating, neither time should you be running more than 40 mg/dl of what you tested before you ate.

[kgm0612]

I've always tested two hours after I tested for a meal. I'm going to start testing 2-1/2 hours after the test to see if this makes a difference.

Karen