Hi everybody
I'm glad to have joined such a fine community here~ I am finally getting back into nursing school (I was one semester from graduating a few years ago last completing med/surg clinicals)... Due to *outside of school* problems, I had to hang up my nursing hat but I knew, deep down, that the time would come in the future where I would have the opportunity to finish. ANYWAY-I thought I would ask this question here since it seems like the perfect place to hopefully get some insite..... this is in relation to my health. I'm a single mom of two children, youngest being 4 years old. Both of my children were 9+pounds and I'm a small gal. My brother, who is only a few years younger than me, was diagnosed with diabetes four years ago and my family doctor recommended to me over a year ago that I start checking my levels at home because he felt I was borderline and had many risk factors, including high LDL levels/very low HDL level accompanied with hi TRI's. Last month, my brother was admitted to the hospital from being very ill and his sugar levels were at 400. I guess you could say that this is what triggered, or 'scared', me into finally getting a home glucose meter. The other factor that was weighing heavy on my mind was the strange things happening to my health over the past 9 months. Dramatic weight loss=35 lb (with no effort or exercise) in under two months, sudden and (what seemed like over night) vision problems-blurred/focus issues, numbness of all ten fingertips and tingling from elbows down to my fingertips, extreme fatique (have had this since teenage years) and seem to be urinating alot more. I'm the type of person who doesn't like to rush to the doctor at the first sign of something, especially considering I'm very, very tight on finances...so doing this at home, I thought, would give me a clear indication if anything was going on. My numbers are really puzzling me and my main question, for any of you who could perhaps enlighten me, is this: For the NON diabetic, how high can blood glucose levels go right after a meal? What is normal? I am testing first thing in the morning (fasting) and 90 percent these numbers are WNL. It's the random numbers that seem so spuratic and high/low. Example: 11:00 pm the other evening, I had just had a half a piece of toast with a little jelly and butter and only THREE bites of grits. I tested a few minutes later and got a whopping 397. An hour later it was down to 297. Some days I stay between 170 and 230's, others I'm completely FINE and let me add-I am consciously making an effort to eat the same each day so to accurately compare my readings. Sometimes, two hours post meal-levels are back down to under 120. Other times-they are still hanging around closer to 200. The highest numbers, however, seem to be right after I eat a meal and I have *heard* that with random testing, any level over 200, no matter what you've just eaten is NOT GOOD. I've also *heard* that it's not the numbers in between that you worry about, but only the fasting and two hour post meals.
I'm sorry for going in circles here, but I'm desperately trying to figure this out and I know that only a doctor can diagnose me, but I can't get to a doctor at the present (unless it were an emergency or something).
Any help/insite would be MOST appreciated!
Thanks in advance and God Bless~
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