What to do with your readings: Meaningful blood glucose monitoring for type 2 diabetes

What to do with your blood glucose readings

So you’ve been checking your blood glucose levels and keeping a record, but what does it all mean?

Blood glucose (sugar) targets will vary from person to person, and can depend on your age, your overall health and any medication you are prescribed. Generally, the target range for people with type 2 diabetes will be 4 - 7 mmol/L before meals and 5 - 8.5 mmo/L more than 1.5 hours after meals. However your healthcare professional will let you know what your individual target range is.

When you check your blood sugar level, sometimes it will be outside your target range - this is completely normal and could be in response to something you’ve eaten, or an activity you have undertaken. This is why it’s really important to keep a record so that you and your healthcare team have something to refer back to when looking at the patterns. If there is an obvious pattern of consistent highs or lows, then your healthcare team can discuss what may have caused this with you. They can then suggest some changes to your therapy - this may be a different dosage or different medication all together, or it could be a lifestyle change such as an adjustment to your diet.

Although the occasional one-off reading outside of your target range is completely normal, it’s important to take action if your blood glucose level is too low (hypo). A hypo can be treated by eating or drinking some fast acting carbohydrates. Things like orange juice or jelly sweets are very fast acting and so are good for treating hypos. Your healthcare team will be able to give you some guidance on how much you would need to use.