Tracking Your Progress by Monitoring Your Blood Sugar Level!
Monitoring your blood sugar levels is essential to controlling type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and any other type of diabetes.
Measuring the level of your blood sugars is just like checking the fuel gauge in your motor vehicle...
only the difference is you don't need to be careful to not run out of fuel, you need to be sure your energy or fuel level doesn't overflow, or go too high! Thank goodness we are no longer in this era...
but not too long ago the only way to check the level of your blood sugars was to mix a few drops of your urine with Benedict's Solution.
When heated the solution changed color and then you had a rough estimate of your blood sugar level.
In the 1970's self-monitoring of blood sugars moved onto test strips which responded immediately with your urine sample.
The test strips turned specific colors which related to the level of sugar in your urine.
By checking the test strip color with a special chart, once more the result was a rough estimate of the level of sugar in your blood stream..
Present day glucometers give a digital readout, store the last one hundred results and come with a CD-rom computer program that allows you to compare your results over the past twenty years! Diabetes is a condition in which the main problem is raised blood sugar levels; so it is of value for a person with diabetes to measure the sugar level in their blood stream and to find out how to best keep this under control.
In the United States sugar is measured in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl); all other countries measure in millimoles per liter (mmol/l).
Blood sugar levels generally follow a trend but they can bounce around from day to day.
No matter how hard you try, you will not hit your target range every time...
but you can keep your average within a set range each time.
What level do you want to see when you test: A normal reading for a non-diabetic: 70 to 110 mg/dl (3.
9 to 6.
0 mmol/l) before eating, and less than 120 mg/dl (6.
7 mmol/l) two hours following a meal Your health care provider may set a slightly higher target range for you: 90 to 120 mg/dl (5.
0 to 6.
7 mmol/l) before eating, and less than 140 to 150 mg/dl (7.
8 to 7.
3 mmol/l) two hours after a meal If you test often and pay attention to what you eat, what you did, and when you took your medications, your glucometer will teach you what you need to do to stabilize your blood sugar levels.
If your blood sugars remain high day after day, it will lead to a high Hba1c which will increase your risk of developing health complications.
We now have a better understanding how diet, exercise and testing of your blood sugar levels protect your health.
Measuring the level of your blood sugars is just like checking the fuel gauge in your motor vehicle...
only the difference is you don't need to be careful to not run out of fuel, you need to be sure your energy or fuel level doesn't overflow, or go too high! Thank goodness we are no longer in this era...
but not too long ago the only way to check the level of your blood sugars was to mix a few drops of your urine with Benedict's Solution.
When heated the solution changed color and then you had a rough estimate of your blood sugar level.
In the 1970's self-monitoring of blood sugars moved onto test strips which responded immediately with your urine sample.
The test strips turned specific colors which related to the level of sugar in your urine.
By checking the test strip color with a special chart, once more the result was a rough estimate of the level of sugar in your blood stream..
Present day glucometers give a digital readout, store the last one hundred results and come with a CD-rom computer program that allows you to compare your results over the past twenty years! Diabetes is a condition in which the main problem is raised blood sugar levels; so it is of value for a person with diabetes to measure the sugar level in their blood stream and to find out how to best keep this under control.
In the United States sugar is measured in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl); all other countries measure in millimoles per liter (mmol/l).
Blood sugar levels generally follow a trend but they can bounce around from day to day.
No matter how hard you try, you will not hit your target range every time...
but you can keep your average within a set range each time.
What level do you want to see when you test: A normal reading for a non-diabetic: 70 to 110 mg/dl (3.
9 to 6.
0 mmol/l) before eating, and less than 120 mg/dl (6.
7 mmol/l) two hours following a meal Your health care provider may set a slightly higher target range for you: 90 to 120 mg/dl (5.
0 to 6.
7 mmol/l) before eating, and less than 140 to 150 mg/dl (7.
8 to 7.
3 mmol/l) two hours after a meal If you test often and pay attention to what you eat, what you did, and when you took your medications, your glucometer will teach you what you need to do to stabilize your blood sugar levels.
If your blood sugars remain high day after day, it will lead to a high Hba1c which will increase your risk of developing health complications.
We now have a better understanding how diet, exercise and testing of your blood sugar levels protect your health.
Source...