Re: Glucose Test -- DIY with a meter

[Guest guest]

Someone suggested getting a blood sugar meter and testing yourself. I

second this idea!

We have a new meter ourselves -- although no one here is diabetic (yet), we

want to stay ahead of the potential, as we have diabetics on both sides of

the family. We also want to see if we can spot any tendency for insulin

insensitivity, and monitor the effects of various diet choices.

The meter I bought -- at drugstore.com, so zero potential for embarrassment

buying it that way -- is a cool one called " Freestyle " . I choose it because

it only requires such a tiny amount of blood (3/10's microliter vs the old

ones that need 10 microliters) -- it's the smallest sample-size available.

It is a truly painless pin-stick to lance the site, and you can test all

over your limbs, and you're not restricted to just your nerve-dense

fingertips. Even my kids (5 & 7) will let me test them, and they both are

needle / pain wimps!

Regarding accuracy -- the docs say that this meter tests all the glucose in

the (tiny) sample and that it is as accurate as any other finger-test meter,

fwiw...

It's interesting to track the changes in the readings based on how much

carbs we ate the day before. We don't have much data yet, but it's a good

reinforcer for us to see that lower carb eating results in lower fasting

blood sugar numbers. LEF says that the standard " you're fine " levels of

" under 100 " are too high and that for optimum health, your fasting levels

need to be at 85 or less.

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/jan2004_awsi_03.htm

I consider this just another tool, like the body-fat scale, to help give me

some " high tech reassurance " that the good old NT ideas about how to eat are

" working " to improve our health. I like being able to monitor things myself

and not having to go to a doc to ask them to authorize blood work.

Mercola pointed to a good older piece on his site recently, it's a lecture

all about insulin and metabolism:

http://mercola.com/2001/jul/14/insulin.htm

And I wanted to heartily thank whoever on this list recommended the book

" Life without Bread " . I'm reading it now and learning a LOT about insulin

and carbs. The authors seem to feel that even GD can be managed by simply

eating fewer carbs. They don't seem to care much about whether a carb is

" simple " or " complex " , they do recognize the slower impact of " complex "

carbs, but they still want to see everyone eating many fewer carbs ( " 72

available carbs per day " or less)... (It's not clear from what I've read so

far that they expect that number to apply during pregnancy or nursing.)

good luck with the new baby!!

[Guest guest]

Thank you Heidi, , Katja, Bob, everyone for the information

about the glucose test meters and relevant sites. I'm beginning to

look now.

Kathy