You know your body better than anyone. Here you can read more about how to become an expert on your diabetes.
Having diabetes means you need to help your body do what it once did automatically. Before you developed diabetes, your pancreas did the work. It kept your blood sugar normal by producing the right amount of insulin at the right time.
Now it’s up to you to make sure your body works as it should. It’s not as difficult as it sounds. For one thing, you won’t be left to cope all on your own. Your diabetes care team will help and support you.
But the fact remains you are in charge of managing your diabetes.
It takes effort to become an expert in self management. You can’t learn just by reading about how to do it.
The best way to learn is by practicing. With time and practice, and working closely with your diabetes care team, you can learn to manage your diabetes effectively and keep good control of your blood sugar.
Testing your blood sugar tells you how well you’re controlling your diabetes. A single blood sugar test at the clinic is usually of little value. This is because it does not give you the overall picture of your blood sugar levels.
It takes much more to keep good control of your diabetes. It means testing your blood sugar regularly during the course of the day. It involves keeping track of the readings in a diary and adjusting your insulin accordingly.
There are real benefits from good blood sugar control:
Exactly how often and when to test your blood sugar varies from person to person. It depends on why you are testing.
For example, you may use each blood sugar reading to adjust your next insulin and your diet. In this case, you should test before each insulin injection and each meal.
Other examples of when it may be helpful to test your blood sugar are:
HbA1c is a measurement you can’t take yourself. Your diabetes care team is likely to do this. What you can do is use information about your HbA1c to improve your self management.
HbA1c is a measure of the amount of sugar bound to the haemoglobin in your red blood cells. In practice, this means it provides an average reading of your blood sugar level over the previous 2-3 months.
HbA1c is a useful indicator of your blood sugar control over a period of time, as opposed to the one-off ‘spot-checks’ from blood glucose meter testing. It helps you and your doctor discuss the best treatment plan for you, and helps you keep track of how well you are doing.
Current guidelines recommend keeping your HbA1c below 7.0%. Your doctor will give you individual advice on this.
Testing your urine for sugar tells you much less about your diabetes than testing your blood for sugar. Urine testing will only tell you if your blood sugar is above 10 mmol/l.
Urine testing can’t tell you if your blood sugar is within your target range. It can't warn you of hypoglycaemia either. Testing the urine only reflects the level of sugar in the blood at the time the urine was formed. Obviously that is not good enough, if you want to know what your blood sugar is right now.
If you find ketones in your urine, it shows that your diabetes is not under control. High levels of ketones may lead to a serious condition called ketoacidosis. Ketones in the urine are a danger sign, and you must take action right away.
Ketones are acid waste products produced in the liver. They are made in large amounts if you don’t have enough insulin and your blood sugar is rising. When ketones reach your kidneys, some flow out in the urine together with sugar. A urine test for ketones can be useful if:
A diary can be a good way to keep track of your blood sugar readings and ketone tests. It may enable you and your diabetes care team to treat your diabetes more effectively.
How to keep a diabetes diary:
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Last updated: August 2009