[MugCanDoIt]

I keep getting different answers. What is your blood sugar supposed to be?

For:

Fasting, like in the morning?
Two hrs after you eat?
Before you go to bed?

What are good numbers?

[meowee]

I'd suggest that you ask your doctor or DEC about specific goals for you. Ev everybody is different.

In the meantime, have a look at the information on the American Diabetes Association website . . . http://www.diabetes.org/

As a general rule of thumb . . . your HbA1C should be below 7 and your FBGL should be below 125. After meals, you really don't want to see higher than 180 and by 3 to 4 hours after eating you should be getting back to near those fasting levels again.

PS -- just where have you been getting those "different answers" and just how "different" are they. If they are coming from your medical team, you should pay attention. If they are coming from non-ADA-sanctioned web-sites or from casual bystanders . . . well.

[VermontChick]

so, i just got an email from my dad. i told him that i recently found out that i am diabetic. he wrote back and said that the 'good news is, if it is caused solely from being overweight, it can go away when you lose weight.'

that would be one example of why i never took my risk of diabetes seriously. i always thought it would 'go away' with weight loss.

i personally feel that type ii diabetes by itself is a lot less serious than morbid obesity, which is also a disease that i have.

so that's how i look at it now.. what do you gals think?

[JulieJ08]

Healthwise, I would choose morbid obesity without diabetes over diabetes without morbid obesity. Diabetes greatly increases risk of heart attack, stroke, blindness, kidney failure requiring dialysis-dependence, and foot/leg amputations.

[meowee]

Type II Diabetes, although definitely a "lifestyle" disease has many underlying causes including genetics. Type I is a different disease and is generally thought to be the result of a virus.

Diabetes and Morbid Obesity are so closely intertwined, it would be difficult to choose one over the other. Definitely, losing the weight would go a long way to ciontrolling your diabetes, but it cannot 'cure' it.

[doggirl]

I too was a bit confused about what my blood glucose levels should be. I was told one number by my doctor, one number by the diabetes educator, and when I did my own research on-line, another number (the lowest values were found during my on-line research). When I questioned the doctor and diabetes educator about my research, I was told essentially that they gear their information toward harm reduction. That's great, but I wanted numbers that would be ideal for my health. If I could, I wanted to eliminate risks not just reduce the harm done. What we eventually came up with was to try to never go over 7.8 two hours after meals - that is apparently when the glucose starts to damage your body. My ultimate goal was to be within 'normal' ranges at all times - under 6 before meals and under 7.8 at all times. Through hard work and some luck thrown in, I am now almost always under 5 before meals, and almost never over 7 two hours after meals.

[meowee]

Those are the normal range for "non-diabetics" and definitely a great goal, but very difficult for a diabetic to maintain over the long term . . . consequently the under 7 (under 125) number is usually considered the goal for those with diabetes.