Diabetes Awareness Week
Thursday: Diabetes self-management
Understanding the target in glucose control is very important matter in diabetes self-management.
Commonly the glucose target range is set too high, this often happens to people with fear of hypoglycaemia or bad experience of hypos in the past. On the opposite spectrum are people who fear long-term complications of diabetes therefore set their glucose levels target very low.
In my consultation with people with diabetes I suggested target of 4-8mmol/l. People often misjudge this target as too low, worrying that the levels will be corrected to 4mmol/l. This range works very well for people using the advisory meters or people on insulin pump therapy as the algorithm in this devices would target the glucose levels to medium of 6mmol/l therefore when the levels drop under 4mmol/l or rise over 8mmol/l the meters would help correct glucose levels to avoid future problems. For people who prefer to make their own calculation, therefore are not using advisory meters, the suggestion would be to have target of 6mmo/l. Both of these targets refer to pre-meals (fasting) glucose levels, for post-meal (postprandial) glucose target, you should allow 2hr post-meal rise of approximately 2.8mmol/l.
Also, importantly, the more regularly people test their glucose levels and keep within the targets getting theirs HbA1c in range, 48-58mmols, could prove worthwhile.
Tips:
- Some people may keep their blood glucose levels higher or lower than this goals, e.g. elderly, pregnancy.
- To correct your glucose targets and improve your HbA1c, test glucose levels before meal times and at bedtime.
