Self-monitoring of blood glucose is very important in the therapeutic management of diabetes. Through self-monitoring, people with diabetes can not only detect hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia in a timely manner, but also provide useful information for adjustment of diabetes treatment regimens.
However, many people with diabetes do not self-monitor their blood glucose in a reasonable way. So, how exactly should you do self-monitoring? Here are three tips for self-monitoring your blood glucose.
1. Choosing a time point for self-monitoring
Self-monitoring time points include blood glucose before three meals, blood glucose 2 hours after three meals, blood glucose before bedtime, blood glucose at 3:00 at night, and blood glucose at other points (e.g., immediate blood glucose monitoring in the event of hypoglycemia).
In general, patients with high blood glucose should first focus on preprandial glucose monitoring; in addition, patients with diabetes who are prone to hypoglycemia, such as the elderly, should monitor preprandial glucose to rule out hypoglycemia; for patients with well-controlled fasting glucose who do not meet the glycated hemoglobin standard (usually less than 7.0%), self-monitoring of postprandial glucose should be performed; for patients with insulin injections For patients who inject insulin, they must monitor their blood glucose at bedtime, especially those who inject medium- and long-acting insulin; a patient with high blood glucose before breakfast must exclude the possibility of hypoglycemia at night, because hypoglycemia can cause reactive hyperglycemia, and then they must monitor their blood glucose at 3 o’clock at night.
2. Choice of frequency of self-glucose monitoring
For patients with poor glycemic control or severe diabetes, it is best to monitor 4-7 times a day and increase the frequency if necessary until the blood glucose is controlled; for patients with good glycemic control, monitoring can be done 1-2 days a week; for patients on insulin, the frequency of blood glucose monitoring should be increased appropriately. The frequency of blood glucose monitoring should be increased to 5 or even 8 times a day at the beginning to facilitate blood glucose control, and can be reduced to 2-4 times a day after the blood glucose reaches the therapeutic target.
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3. Flexible use of self-glucose monitoring
Different patients with diabetes have the flexibility to choose the timing and frequency of self-monitoring based on their own circumstances. For example, it is clearly impractical for a patient with diabetes to monitor blood glucose multiple times a day, so he or she can monitor blood glucose before breakfast and four times on rest days (including blood glucose before breakfast and 2 hours after three meals) to get a general idea of his or her blood glucose level for the day. The following is a summary of the results of this study