Testing Blood Sugars After Drinks

Hi One question that seems to have alluded me as I keep getting different answers or not quite sures is I know to test my blood sugar 2 hours after food, but is that affected with having a drink ie squash, water, or even hot drinks. Can I have a drink in the 2 hours and still a positive result or do I have to align my drinks like my food for testing. I've never really got a proper answer before, so hope someone can guide me forward on this one. Thanks in advance
John

John,
I think my answer would be - test whenever you think you need to. That way you learn what affects your blood sugar levels. I don't have squash - I drink a lot of water, a couple of cups of tea with sweetener and the occasional beer or glass of wine.

Hi John,

If you test 2 hours after a meal (also called post prandial testing) your result should be below 10 mmol in an ideal world. However if you have had a reasonable amount of high or medium GI foods or had squash (which generally has a large amount of sugar in it no matter what the label says) then it might be a little over.

I try not to worry too much about post prandial checks and only do them occasionally as a sense check. Drinks which have sugar in them or alcoholic drinks can and do effect our levels. (white wine has more sugar in than red and lager...well just don't even think about the levels in there)

The thing is to eat and drink 'sensibly' (although I can never get a decent definition for that word) and remember that some days you may be a little over and hopefully more days you'll be on target or just under.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes
Nick

Eating sensibly is more difficult in some households than others. I site my household as an example. Hubby has dairy intolerance, big boy can't eat shrimps and prawns without being ill and wont eat anything containing nuts, little boy is a VERY fussy eater and I am a diabetic vegetarian.

I try to provide a variety with plenty of fresh vege and there is always fruit of some kind on the table, but it's not always easy given their fondness for chips and things fried