When you have diabetes, it is crucial to ensure you know what your blood sugar levels are. Unexpected changes to your sugar levels can cause serious complications. By regularly checking your glucose levels, you can identify an unexpected change and take action before it becomes a more serious situation. A common question among people with diabetes is how frequently they should test their blood sugar levels. We take a closer look at things to consider when asking this question.
Different Testing Requirements Between Type 1 And Type 2 Diabetes
One of the first things to consider is the fact that type 1 and type 2 diabetes are not the same. There is also gestational diabetes that we need to take into consideration. Due to differences in the pathways by which these diabetic conditions work, the recommended testing frequencies for testing will often also differ.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition where the immune system attacks the pancreas. This reduces the insulin that the pancreas creates – and when your body does not have enough of this hormone, it adversely affects glucose metabolism in your body. This often means you’ll take insulin injections as a treatment for the condition.
If you have type 2 diabetes, then it means your cells have become more resistant to insulin. The job of insulin becomes harder, and that leads to a reduced amount of glucose entering your cells. Treatment here depends on how type 2 diabetes affects you and the specific pathways that it affects.
Minimum Recommended Testing Frequency
We should start by considering what the minimum recommended frequency is for testing your blood glucose levels.
Research suggests that you should test your blood sugar at least once per day. This helps to ensure you can keep an eye on how well you are managing your diabetes. Testing at this frequency also ensures you can identify long-term problems with the management program your doctor has developed for you. When your test results do not show improvements, you can report this to your doctor. This allows you and your healthcare provider to optimize the treatment to improve its impact on your diabetes management.
While once per day is enough for some people with type 2 diabetes, it does not account for everyone. When you have type 1 diabetes, you’ll need to test multiple times throughout the day – which is mostly because you will need to inject insulin regularly based on how your glucose levels change.
Factors That Affect Testing Frequency
There are some general guidelines that you can follow if you don’t know how frequently to test your glucose levels. As we mentioned, type 1 diabetes requires more frequent testing compared to type 2. With this said, there are many other factors you need to keep in mind when you want to determine how many times you should test your glucose during the day. Let’s take a closer look at elements that can have an impact on your testing frequency.
Treatment Program
There are different medications and even lifestyle changes that can become part of your diabetes treatment program. These will often have a major impact on the frequency at which you should test your blood glucose levels, particularly since some treatments can cause short-term fluctuations.
If you use insulin to manage your diabetes, regardless of the type you have, you’ll need to test about three to five times every day. This is especially important in cases where you need to inject yourself with insulin more than once per day. Your doctor may suggest you test before injecting to ensure you do not experience hypoglycemia, for example.
Disease Lifetime
The duration during which you have had diabetes also impacts the testing frequency. If you have only been diagnosed with diabetes recently, then your healthcare provider will ask you to do a glucose test multiple times a day. The main purpose here is to help your doctor determine what the best possible management option is for your case.
Once the initial treatment plan has been created, your healthcare provider may require less frequent testing when they wish to optimize and adjust the program over time.
Lifestyle Factors
How active you are and what you eat can both impact your blood sugar regulation.
If you live a very active lifestyle, then understand how it can affect blood glucose regulation. It’s important to ensure you are physically active, but be sure to test your sugar levels before you start to exercise, as well as afterward. If the exercise reduces your glucose levels too much, you may need to eat something to stabilize it.
Those who consume a large amount of sweets, candies, and other sugary foods or drinks in their diet also need to ensure they are aware of how it affects their blood glucose. These foods and drinks can cause spikes in sugar levels, and can even lead to hyperglycemia. You can use regular blood glucose monitoring to determine when it is an appropriate time to have a sweet treat and when you should rather opt for something lower in sugar.
Bottom Line
A change in blood glucose can lead to fatigue, sweating, and more. This accounts for hyper- and hypoglycemia. Knowing how frequently to check your blood sugar levels is a great way to identify changes and take the right actions early on. At a minimum, you should test your sugar levels once a day if you are a diabetic, but there are several cases where more frequent testing is required. Talk to your doctor if you have concerns or feel confused, as this can help you clarify the ideal frequency of testing.