I'm trying very hard not to smash my meter as it's giving me results. It's not the fault of the technology. The meter is giving me the results it is programmed to give. The problem is either the test strips or the blood at this juncture. I'm leaning more towards the latter.
I expected a high in the morning as I had some chips and salsa last night. Yes, corn chips. No, I didn't count them.
At a servings size of 2 Tbsp for the salsa (10g Carbs/Serving) puts just the salsa at 40g of Carbs! A meal should be a maximum of 60g of Carbs, by the way. Sadly, this was just a snack. The chips run 10 for 17g of Carbs. Again, I didn't count them and the Nutrition Label doesn't give me a measurement for say 1/4 of the bag!
When a reading comes up that surprises you, there are generally a few things that can help to narrow down the reason behind the number. It's not always the fact that you've eaten the wrong things. It could be the test strips, the meter, the blood, a dirty test site and a whole host of other things that I cannot remember. My Diabetic Pharmacist gave me a list of things during our meeting, but yeah, I've slept since then.
The best thing to do first is to test the meter and the test strips with your control solution. Mine was provided with my kit that I got from Dr. Gameshowhost. The solution is designed to register a 'normal' reading. So with my meter, that's anywhere between 85 mg/dL and 115 mg/dL. So here goes!
Ready?
Set?
GO!
Note to self: Be careful with the control solution. It has the consistency of Kool-Aid and is the color of blueberry juice.
And the result is: 106 mg/dL. Damn. Control came back in the normal range. So there's the hypothesis blown. So the next thing to do is test the blood again.
So, last night I tested at 1903 Local time wit a reading of 155 mg/dL. Not the best, but it wasn't that bad. This morning (after the Chips-and-Salsa Incident, as it came to be known) at 0615 I had a reading of 204 mg/dL. Not the best start to my day.
I had yogurt, coffee with creamer and as always, diet Dr. Pepper until lunch. For lunch I had a grilled ham and cheese on rye bread. You may think that's extravagant, but it's really not. While tasty the most expensive part of that meal was the rye bread. It runs, on average, 15g Carbs per slice. Check your own bread, it's probably worse. I also had veggie straws and a pickle spear. The total should have kept me under the 60g carbohydrate limit for my meals.
The next test was at 1324 local time with a reading of 210. Yeah, gleeful wasn't it? This test was two hours after I ate so I figured that either my Honey slipped something into the sandwich to bump up my sugar, or it was a false reading somehow. I have had no food since lunch time and it's now 1655 local time (some five and a half hours after lunch).
Test strips and meter are working correctly, so let's see what's in store for test number three, shall we?
Drum roll, please.
And for those of you who are thinking, "Well gee, didn't you take your medication at lunch?" The answer to that question is, "Yes, yes I did." Thanks for checking on that though folks.
Zip, prick, ooze, tick, tick, tick, DING!
And the result is 116 mg/dL. That reading is just on the diabetic side of normal and I'll take it! This puts my average for the day at 177 mg/dL. Again, not the best number in the world, but it could always be worse.
High days happen and you shouldn't feel guilty about them. LEARN from them instead. Diabetes isn't going to change overnight and neither are my habits. It took some time to learn the bad habits I've got, and it's going to take work and time and patience to unlearn them as well.
That is the Tao of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment