

If I didn't eat why would my blood sugar go up all by itself?

Members, let's talk a bit about checking blood sugar.

We see posts quite often where a member wants to know why their blood sugar was high after eating a meal or a certain food. In many cases the member says they had not eaten in five hours or their blood sugar was 99 when they woke up but now 4 hours later it is 160 even though they only ate bacon and eggs. The member wants to know why this food or this meal raised blood sugar so high and wants the other members of the group to speculate and try to answer this unanswerable question.

The main reason that it is unanswerable by the group members (and you) is because we don't know what your blood sugar was when you STARTED eating.

I have said this so often! If you don't know what your blood sugar was before the meal then we don't know if that meal spiked you by 50 points or if, on the other hand, your blood sugar went up before you ate.

You may find that odd. "If I didn't eat why would my blood sugar go up all by itself?"

Well, it is simple but not so simple. Your pancreas and your liver "listen" to each other. In diabetics communication is not working the same as it did before you got diabetes.

In many cases if you have not eaten for several hours or you delay your morning meal your insulin (not blood sugar) goes lower. This is a good thing as we do not want high insulin levels all the time.

Low insulin in the pancreas stimulated the other side of the pancreas, the alpha cells. The alpha cells begin to release glucagon and tell the the liver to release some stored glucose (sugar) at the same time to give the body some energy. Your liver does not have any idea what the blood sugar level is in your blood at that time. It only listens to the messages given to it from the pancreas.

So, the point I want to make is that if you have not tested your blood sugar right before eating your meal you have no starting point. Was your blood sugar 99 before that meal or did it go up to 130 over the past few hours because you did not eat breakfast. Did you have a late meeting and ended up getting home late which delayed your dinner? Did you have a stressful day, an argument or did you exercise before eating? Any of these things will change your blood sugar levels.

In order to discover if the meal you ate spiked your blood sugar or if your blood sugar had already risen before you ate please test before your first bite of food. This makes your question about your rise in blood sugar better able to be answered. It also tells you a lot about how your body responds to delaying or skipping a meal.

Keep in mind that your question about your high post meal blood sugar is not going to be answerable by the group members if you did not include a before meal blood glucose reading. So please remember to test before first bite!


Tyson Sullivan
Quite often indeed!

Lori Dupuy
So many factors affect sugar...ugh

Rochelle Smith
Since we are on the topic of blood sugars, could too low blood sugars cause anxiety?

Bridget Koronkiewicz
I think my insomonia affects my blood sugars.

Rory Marshall
I might also mention that, an occasional, unexpected and unexplainable glucose reading, "does not a problem make"! That's especially true if the "odd-ball" value is below 120 mg/dl (6.65 mmol/L). It's highly unlikely that an occasional aberrant number is going to cause you any long-term harm. So, please don't over think it!

Tyson Sullivan
So if your insulin goes down because you skipped breakfast, and your glucose goes up to give you energy...what happens if you take metformin ? Does it raise insulin at that point?

Rory Marshal
Tyson, no. Metformin does not directly affect insulin production like the sulfonylurea drugs do. Metformin indirectly helps to lower blood glucose levels by suppressing the release of the liver's glucose production and by making the cells of the body less resistant to the insulin that is present.

Chris Wentworth
Stanbridge Rory, which is why, according to my endo, he believes that he will always recommend metformin at a minimum dose for well controlled T2. I am working with him on that.

Claudia V. Torres
Okay. Take a reading before you eat. Then take it again 2 hours after a meal or 1 hour after a meal??

Sandy Bahr
2 or 2 1/2 hours after Claudia.

Claudia V. Torres
Sandy Bahr thank you. I will implement this tomorrow.

Ivan Velez
You guys are the greatest with all this info....Bless you guys for this FB site🙏💪🏽

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