Blood Sugar Management at Home

Managing your blood glucose (sugar) levels at home is helpful for a number of reasons. It helps you to make decisions on how to respond when your blood glucose levels are running low or high. It may also help you to prevent lows or prevent highs. And it helps you in the long term to hopefully prevent some or all of the complications that may occur with diabetes overtime.

When you manage your levels at home, this means that you are checking your blood glucose levels on a device – a glucometer, which most often uses your finger to get a sample of blood, or – a continuous glucose monitor, or CGM, which uses an under the skin sensor to measure your blood. It’s important to ask your doctor or your diabetes educator for more information if you are looking for the best monitoring tool for your diabetes.

Once you decide, along with your doctor, which device is right for you. You will need a plan that makes sense for you. Discussing your monitoring plan with your physician is always best. If you are using a glucometer to check your blood glucose levels, your doctor will help you determine how often to check throughout the day. Sometimes, it’s recommended as little as once per day or as often as 10 times per day. Depending on the times per day, determine a schedule for checking your levels. This will help you to see any trends and to better manage your diabetes. If you are using a continuous glucose monitor, or CGM, this device will automatically measure your glucose level every few minutes as long as you are wearing it.

Your doctor may also help you understand the “target range” for your numbers as you check them. There are suggested ranges that you may use as a guide and your doctor may adjust with you according to your needs (see the table below). Your blood glucose levels are going up and down all day and night. The goal is to keep them in a range to prevent hyperglycemia (high blood glucose) and hypoglycemia (low blood glucose). Eating often makes your blood glucose level rise as food provides glucose which is energy or fuel for the cells in our body. Glucose provides energy to our cells and it requires insulin to do this. Diabetes is when insulin is either not available or it’s not working properly, so glucose remains in the bloodstream and causes hyperglycemia (high blood glucose). Therefore, it’s more likely to have a high blood glucose level after eating when you have diabetes. You’ll see that 2 hours after eating the suggested level is higher than before meals.

If you are using a glucometer:

*this a suggested range; please speak with your doctor.

Using a CGM, will also give you a range. It’s called Time In Range (TIR), which is often set between 70 and 180 mg/dl. With a CGM, you will have a percentage that tells you how much time you are in range and how much time you are below or above range. Your doctor may use this data to support any changes to your diabetes management plan.

Creating a plan for monitoring your levels at home and understanding how to respond when your numbers may be high or low are important tools for managing your diabetes on a day-to-day basis. If you need some support and more education on why your numbers are going too high or too low, don’t hesitate to reach out – we can schedule you for a class!