Planning When to Check Your Glucose? Here are Some Tips!

Do you struggle with remembering to check your blood sugars? Are you not sure when the best time to check might be? Forgetting your meter at home, or interrupting an activity to check can be tiresome and inconvenient. To learn ways to effortlessly incorporate checking blood glucose into your routine, it is important to set up a plan.

Most doctors and diabetes educators will typically recommend monitoring your blood glucose before and after each of your three main meals, and at bedtime, but depending on your specific situation, you may have different needs. Depending on your situation, lifestyle, and goals, some of the following suggestions might apply to you:

• Every time before injecting insulin
• At least once daily if you take oral diabetes medications- your diabetes specialist or doctor can help you determine the best time.
• If you are trying to adjust your diet, try to monitor both before and after one of your meals daily.
• Before exercise, driving or handling dangerous machinery to ensure your blood glucose is at a safe level for those activities.
• After exercise, to see how the activity has affected your blood glucose, and get a snack if needed.
• When you are sick, blood glucose will be more unstable and unpredictable. Try to monitor more frequently while sick.
• When you experience hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) symptoms
• When you feel hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) symptoms

There are many scenarios here for why you should check your glucose more often. Talk with your healthcare provider about when and how many times you need to monitor daily to work best for your diabetes control and your schedule. Once you have a routine for checking and you know why you need to check in different circumstances, it will become an effortless and almost automatic part of your daily habits.