In your blood you can find your DNA, a unique set of instructions that makes you, you. It’s not the only thing that blood can tell you, it also contains a story of what you have been exposed to, what you eat or what you breathe. In other words, your blood can be analyzed to know your health, both immediate and previous.
When it comes to managing diabetes, there are many numbers to take into account. All of them are equally important in telling the story of your health.”Blood sugar numbers” are important in figuring out how well your body is working and how your diabetes is being managed.
When it comes to type 2 diabetes, there are two types of numbers: Daily blood sugar numbers that you can measure with a glucose meter, and a long-term blood sugar number called A1C. This last one is recorded by specialists.
Daily numbers
Checking your blood sugar with a glucose meter is a great way to see how your body is working. A drop of blood will provide with a lot of information. Glucose meters give information in a specific unit of measurement: milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL). In other words how much glucose (in weight) is present in a determined volume of blood. If you need help picking a glucose meter, talk to a healthcare professional.
Checking your blood sugar daily is important because it will tell you if:
- Your diabetes medicine is working properly, or
- How food, physical activity, and stress affect your blood sugar.
The time when you measure your blood sugar is also important. You can take measurement first thing in the morning (also called Fasting Plasma Glucose or FPG also known as fasting blood sugar). FPG is measured first thing in the morning, at least 8 hours after your last meal. The FPG will show your your blood sugar level when there’s no food in your system, because the presence of food will increase this reading. It’s a good base level reading. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends keeping your FPG between 80 and 130 mg/dL.
Another reading you can do daily is the Postprandial Plasma Glucose, or PPG for short. This reading lets you know your blood glucose after a meal. It is measured one to two hours after the start of your meal. PPG will let you know how much the meal you had affected your blood sugar level. The ADA recommends a PPG below 180 mg/dL.
Write these numbers down in a journal. In doing this, you will notice patterns that will help you and your healthcare provider to figure what adjustments need to be made.
A1C test
Taking a long-term look at your blood sugar numbers will provide your health care team a bigger picture of how your blood sugar is being controlled. A1C tests the amount of sugar linked with hemoglobin, the protein in your red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout your body. A little glucose attached to hemoglobin is normal, but too much glucose attached is a sign of too much sugar in your blood. A1C can be tested every two to three months, giving a picture or your blood sugar for the past two to three months.
A1C results are given as a percentage. Lowering your A1C by at least one percent can reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes complications. The ADA considers less than 7 percent the target with most people with diabetes.
So, get your glucose meter and notebook out and start taking those measurements. Keeping track of your diabetes will be a great approach at a better quality of life.
