What is normal?

Hi Amanda, your question will get you answers in a wide range of numbers depending on the source!  The American Diabetes Assoc., your doctor, another person's doctor, your neighbor - they all seem to have a different answer.  So, here's what I've come across:  a healthy non-diabetic would probably have a reading of less than 120 about 2 hours after a meal.  Theirs would rarely go above 140 after eating.  The diabetes "industry" will probably tell you "less than 140" is ok.  But if you do more reading on the subject, you'll find that blood sugars in ranges higher than 140 (or even higher than 120) on a regular basis might be damaging to your internal organs over time.  And you never want to be near or over 200!  Some factors that give you high readings after eating would be the amount of carbohydrates you ate and also the amount of food you ate even if you didn't overdo the carbs.  I hope that gives a little insight!  Welcome to the fuzzy world of diabetes.  :)

Lanie   

Hi Amanda, last fall I was where you are now.  So, here's what I've learned but keep in mind that every person's body (and pancreas) handles food differently perhaps.  First of all, your numbers are elevated and would be either "prediabetic" or "diabetic" depending on the doctor you're seeing.  You'll probably be given a glucose tolerance test in which you have to drink that sugary liquid.  There's another test, a simple blood test, called the A1c which can tell your blood sugar levels from the past 3 months.  I'm not sure if there's a "certain number" but the ADA online says: "criteria for diagnosing diabetes are met when any of the following results have been repeated on at least 2 different days: a fasting blood glucose level is 123 or higher, a 2-hour oral glucose tolerance test os 200 or higher, symptoms of diabetes are present and a random blood glucose test is 200 or higher.  (Symptoms are increased thirst, increased urination, unexplained weight loss, fatigue, blurred vision, tingling or numbness in hands or feet.)"

I don't know about the symptoms before turning into diabetes.  When I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic, I didn't have any symptoms, but that's me.  Feeling shakey and sick could be really low sugar, hypoglycemia, but you said you haven't had readings that low.  I don't know about those feelings in the 150 range.  I used to have readings that high in the past but never those feelings. 

The last part of your post is dangerous to you!!!  Don't let anyone ever tell you to ignore this.  Being pre-diabetic IS serious.  You might be able to avoid future complications and illness by controlling your blood sugar now.  Read as much as you can of the past postings on this forum and you'll find a lot of information.  Buy Richard Bernstein's Diabetes Solutions.  Or, at the very least do these:  1. Cut down or cut out white foods like potatoes (deadly to diabetics), cakes, cookies, rice, bread...  2.  Eat moderately, not a lot at any one meal.  3.  Eat more vegetables and meat, chicken fish.  4.  Record what you eat and the time and your blood sugar readings so you'll know what foods raise your blood sugar.  5.  Exercise like walking, do resistance training with dumbbells.

I used to have fasting numbers from 110 to 126 but now they're in the 80's and 90's.  I've lost about 30 lbs from last summer and I think that's also helped in addition to a complete change of how I've been eating.  My last blood work came out so good my doctor wrote "outstanding" on my copy.  But - I'm not "there" yet and I do know I'll always have to follow this way of eating because I still cannot eat carbohydrates without spikes in the blood sugar.

Good luck and remember, we're here to help you.  We're all in the same boat.

  Lanie

Thanks to both of you!  I can't wait to get in to see my Dr. in 2 weeks.  I just want to know once and for all and be told exactly what I can and can't eat.  I still have so many questions.  And I think I might mention to my Dr. what the nurse told me. She gave me some wrong info about my son and because I listend to her my son had to have emergancy surgery the next day. You would have thought I would have learned the first time. :)  I thought a nurse would know better about something like this though.  Who knows what other bad info she is giving other patients?!!

Keep your fingers crossed that I'm just at a  pre-diabetic and not full blown diabetes.

Once you become pre-diabetic are you always going to be that way or can you get rid of it with diet and excersise?

One more thing.  I know this might sound strange to you, Amanda, but many if not most of the forum people here disagree with the diet guidelines of the ADA.  (You're in the States?)  The ADA and many doctors still advise to follow the food pyramid and eat a diet of about 55% carbohydrates, whole grains, etc.  Well, if you do that, you probably can't control your blood sugar yourself.  (Of course, not everyone is in a stage where blood glucose can be controlled without meds.)  In any case, your doctor may hand you a print out with a diabetic "diet" and if it's from the ADA recommending all those carbs, your numbers will not go any lower.  My own doctor (a GP) did that and the nutritionist told me I could cut the carbs way down to around 40%.  I did and couldn't figure out why I still had such high numbers - well, hello?  Carbs drive blood sugar up.  So, several things happened at once.  I remembered reading the South Beach diet at the beginning and Phase 1 (no carbs), I learned about the Glycemic Index, I tried not eating carbs and I got better numbers, I read a lot online about carbs, and one of the members here (Thank you, Fergusc!) recommended the Richard Bernstein book.  Suddenly, it all came together and I was enlightened.  If you don't know about the Glycemic Index of foods, search online for it and you'll learn which foods you'll probably be able to eat with impunity (the lower GI foods).

Lanie

Amanda!  Your life reads almost exactly like mine.  I knew nothing about diabetes even though my mother and her mother had it, but no one talked about it.  And I know for a fact that my mother never followed a good diet.  Anyway, "good" carbs are the ones that have a lot of fiber so your body doesn't process them very quickly.  (I cannot describe the process in medical terms.)  The longer it takes your digestion, the better.  So, you're looking for fiber content on anything you buy.  Depending on your own body, you might do very well with a small about of carb with a meal as long as you eat it with protein (meat, chicken..) and vegetables.  When I make dinner, I make sure I also prepare vegetables I can eat and small salad stuff with oil and vinegar dressing.  Prepared dressings have added sugar - so read their labels for carbs.  Balsamic vinegar has some carbs.  So, a typical dinner for me is 1 piece of chicken (not Southern fried!), sauteed vegetables in Smart Balance (or olive oil if you prefer), a small wedge of cheddar, some salad stuff to nibble on.  I love sauteed red peppers, or green, and mushrooms.  One week I made them every night because I do like them!  Brocolli, cauliflower with melted butter or Smart Balance or cheddar.  And a glass of white wine - if you're not taking diabetes medicine.  I have never forced my family to change their diet.  If I'm making a rice dish, I serve it but I don't eat the rice.  I'll eat the rest of the meal as I described but never the rice.  For myself, I have cut out potatoes and bread because I just cannot eat them and keep good blood sugar readings.  I've tried all kinds of bread, whole berry, high fiber, etc.  Just doesn't work for me, so you have to see how your own readings are.  Moderation is the key.  Once I ate a really big meal of only good food but my readings 2 hours later were high.  I just ate too much.  We had steak, those sauteed vegetables (maybe 2 different kinds) and a salad.  Well, just eating too much at one meal will also give you high readings, so try to eat less.  Sometimes, I'll same a portion of dinner and eat it later as a snack.  In restaurants, I tell them to substitute another vegetable for the potatoes, and I always take leftovers in a box home because restaurant meals are too large.  This way of eating will become easier as you get used to it, honest!  As for a sometime dessert?  Eat a small portion of a slice of the cake after the meal if it's served and you don't want to feel left out.  I will do that if we're eating out or celebrating something.  Or, I just eat a portion of my husband's.  He's ok with that.  You can't beat yourself up or keep yourself in a cage.  Drink diet soda if you have to drink a Coke.  I was ignorant about all this until it fell into my lap but I've learned so much from going online and from the forum.  I'm much healthier now all around, so in a way it's a blessing, but I'll always be either "borderline" or a diabetic.  In my case, it's not going to go away but I can live with it.

Now, my coffee.  I wanted to reply quickly this morning while I had time.  :)

Take care, Lanie

Amanda,
I had some excellent diabetes educators and would like to share some of their knowledge with you.

1) Nobody can give themselves diabetes.There are lots of obese people in the world without diabetes and plenty of slender ones who develop it almost overnight. (Warren who is on byetta comes to mind. 3% body fat!)

2)Many Type 2 Diabetics are born with the tendency to develop the disease. This means that their metabolism is askew from early on and often after childhood when they achieve their adult growth (and stop playing outside and start driving everywhere) they go pre-diabetic.

If you lived 100 years ago when women did much more physical labor (just lighting the stove was about 100 calories expended!) you may never go diabetic because the amount of daily physical activity you did would balance out the calories you took in and the necessary movement of everyday life would prevent your body from becoming resistant to its own insulin. Food preparation, child care, laundry and cleaning our homes used to be much more physically strenuous than it is now. Heck! Even going to the bathroom meant a stroll across the back yard a few times a day to get to the outhouse!

The only way to counteract our food intake/energy expended imbalance is to learn to balance it back and hopefully do it without medication. Thankfully there is medication for those of us who can't fix the imbalance but that doesn't mean we can continue on eating whatever we please and expecting the pills to do magic.

You will learn that food comes in three forms. Fat, protein and carbohydrate. Whatever a food has as its major component is usually how that food is classified. When I took my classes I was shocked to find that the nutritionist classified a glass of milk as a carbohydrate! I asked about the protein and calcium and she said I could get those from cheese. It was the lactose that would impact my blood sugar and I had to be careful about that and learn to count it. This doesn't mean that I don't drink milk, it just means that I had to see milk in a different light.

Then she told me that broccoli was a carbohydrate! I'm like, "What! It's a vegetable!" So she asked me if it was a protein or a fat...? Well, duh! It's a carb! It's a great, good for you, low glycemic index carb, but it's a carb! She explained that the carbs in the vegetables are locked inside the cell walls of the plant so they took longer for our bodies to access them, but that was great because vegetables were like time-release carbs with lots of vitamins and minerals in the same package. Fruits aren't quite as great as vegetables so we eat them in moderation, but they have lots of anti-oxidants and vitamins to make up for their extra sweetness.

So in my mind I'm thinking I have to live on chicken breasts and broccoli for the rest of my life and she starts talking about fats like olive oil and avocados being great for us and even an occasional real scoop of actual ice cream... "WHAT!!! ICECREAM!!!" Hold the phone! Did I hear her right? Yes, real ice cream, one scoop once or twice a week on an evening when I don't have potatoes, rice or bread with dinner. The fat in the icecream slows down the absorption of the sugars in the stuff and cream is better for us than milk as far as lactose levels go.

Things are starting to look up... So I studied and I learned and I read on the net and I shared with my fellow diabetics and pretty soon I found a workable way of life that doesn't seem all that difficult to follow. And once in a while I have real french fries (no more than 13) and sometimes I eat cake and skip the icing. I eat real dark chocolate every day for my heart (and soul), just a small piece... and I'm starting to make peace with my diabetes.

So, no matter what you find out that your body is up to you can learn to handle it. And if you go full blown diabetic you can still handle it with medication and exercise and buddies who understand and care. We will be here and we will help you thru every step of the way because someone was here to do it for us. And it will be ok. Just KOKO!!! (Keep on keepin' on...)

 Hi Amanda,

I'm so glad to hear that you are feeling less anxious about all this! That's exactly how I felt when I came to this forum, but of course, my situation is a bit different than yours, I was way beyond pre-diabetic. This is the most helpful and comforting place!! Stay with us!

((((((((Big Hugs))))))))))),

Bear

Hi Amanda ...

I was out of town this weekend and my just "catching up" on all the news. You've gotten GREAT advice!!!

I spent a lot of time in tears this weekend blaming myself for getting the blasted disease because during a post divorce period of INTENSE self loathing I allowed myself to gain 40 lbs, eat like a slob, and never go to the doctors. When I came out of my self induced fog I was a diabetic. Seriously, I SOBBED all the way home in the car tonight ... so sad that I did this to myself. Then I had to say, "WAIT ... this runs in my birthfamily and I didn't KNOW that until the month I was diagnosed!!!" So did I feed the beast? Yes. Did I create it? NO.

You didn't either!!!