HI - So this seems strange to me. When I first started keto (I tested by accident my blood glucose — I was in the 110 range…) Wasn’t happy but as I have been doing keto it went down … below 100 …
I tested the other day and it’s now 120?
I’ve lost around 10 lbs.
I’m panicking a little? HELP? Why is it going up?
Research dawn phenomenon. It took me over 6 months to get mine to even out. I still have a small spike here and there. I have been strict keto for almost 3 years. KCKO
You need a larger sample before you know anything. Take it at the same time every morning and see if it’s always higher.
I recall that people in Ketosis can see a higher bg but I don’t recall why. Maybe @richard knows
It might be adaptive glucose sparing. Basically, once your body becomes fat adapted, cells no longer want glucose, leaving the sugar in the blood stream instead of being used.
For a more about this topic, see:
That link also discusses other reasons that it might be high.
FWIW, this has been a concern / frustration of mine too, though in my case, I think my higher (than I’d like) glucose numbers might well be coming from cortisol due to lack of adequate sleep and other stresses too.
There are other potential reasons besides glucose sparing
If you don’t get enough sleep or you have stress, your cortisol levels are high and your glucose will be somewhat higher in response
If you eat a big meal late, your morning glucose can be somewhat higher in response
Meters are allowed to vary up to 20% by the FDA and if you use a meter to test twice in a row, even using the literal same drop of blood, you’ll see big variations, even ±10 points or more
If you’re coming down with something (cold, flu etc) your glucose is gonna be higher
If you’re on certain medications (esp steroids but other things too) your glucose could be higher
Various vitamin and mineral deficiencies or imbalances can cause higher fasting glucose -vitamin D but also other things too
As long as a1c & trigs are low enough though, no worries
^^^This^^^
20% variance. That means if your BG is truly at 150, it could show 120~180. Or worse yet, if your BG was actually 310 (you should be heading to the ER) the meter could read 248~372. [and no way to know which end of the variance you are leaning toward]. To me, this makes no sense at all. Variances this large give you meaningless data. My own tests with two meters I have show large variances between the two meters as well as between tests done on same drop of blood with same meter.
Anyone know of a more accurate test for BG? Im all ears.
Bob I recently (just over a month ago) got an Abbott Freestyle Libre cgm and it is SUPERCOOL. Not superaccurate, ok, in fact every sensor I’ve gotten has been low 20-30 points compared to my standard blood glucose reader. But I use a correction factor to compensate (using the android app Glimp as a reader) and with the correction factor it seems very accurate. Plus the continuous readings are way more informative than taking a few spot readings here and there. The overnight fluctuations are really fascinating. Wanna see a log?
Data… Ummmmm…
ABSOLUTELY!
OK, Im a science geek. Hit me with the logs.
Got any good graphs to go with it? [wink, wink, nudge nudge]
You have done a tremendous service to me by posting this article. I am sure others will also find it very helpful. Thank you!!! 
YEAH lets get nerdy 
So some context - although I had full blown t2 diabetes with an a1c of 12.1 a few years ago, my current a1c is 4.6, my trigs are low, my fasting insulin is low… Life is good and by standard insulin resistance measures I am not IR at all.
So here’s a snapshot of my glucose for the time period from early evening yesterday through around 10am today. This log shows I effed up bigtime last night… I had been water-fasting since Thursday. Then Friday evening I broke my fast around 6pm (liverwurst and pickles) which inspired a gentle rise (bit of gluconeogenesis no doubt). I had been hoping for dinner so it was a small snack but for whatever reason, my husband (our house keto-chef) had issues and didn’t put dinner on the table til 9:30ish by which point I was really quite hungry and ate late, ate a lot of protein… No bueno, I should have just fasted. I went to bed at midnight as usual and woke up at 7… So you can see what happened overnight…
If I’d just tested fasting glucose when I woke up it would have read around 100 and I wouldn’t have known about the shenanigans overnight. But dang, lots of shenanigans! Eating late is bad!
Then I hit the treadmill hard around 10-12, even did some weights… Caused an initial spike followed by a steep drop as I depleted my glucose and tapped my glycogen. Good workout. After I stopped, it rose a little bit – the glycogen release had stopped being used up so quickly so there’s a rebound… I probably should do a cool-down after I work out hard. But it went away quickly… I know exercise increases insulin sensitivity of muscle tissue so it probably is rebuilding muscle tissue glycogen stores now.
I’m having a blast with this thing. I am my own science experiment! Discussed the results with the family & we’re gonna try to eat dinner at 7pm daily, or I’ll fast.
Sadly RX only unless you got the $$ to order from Europe and pay out of pocket. Theyre not that expensive, but I asked my doc to write me a prescription and he did.
Thanks. After I sent the email, I looked it up. I have already popped an email to my medical provider to write the Rx. Any idea ball park of price and sensor price?
However, what all do I need to do to convert it how you converted your readings to make them more accurate? All I have is a pc and a flip phone.
My copay after insurance was $70 for the reader and $10 per sensor, so $30/month since the US sensors are set to expire after 10 days. They actually work for 14 days but you have to use the Android app Glimp to read it, the official Abbott reader will stop after 10 days.
It’s the android app Glimp that allows you to calibrate. If you don’t have an android phone with an NFC sensor you’re stuck with the Abbott reader which doesn’t let you calibrate.
BTW for any hackers out there, the used sensors have NFC and can be repurposed.
I’ve been having a raised FBG for over a week now too. I first measured my levels around a month and a half into keto and it was always in the mid seventies. I tested every other day for a month and it remained there. Then suddenly around a week ago it rose to the mid nineties (I’m now 3 months into keto with no carb refeeds and no artificial sweetener…etc) I also once measured it after exercise and it was 112.
What do you think this is?
I was reading a bit on those continuous monitors. I thought it would be great to have a sensor implanted that used NFC. I mean, how Star Trek is that 
. But then I learned they were external:nauseated_face:. Worse than that external with an attached probe that goes subdermal (subcutaneous). That just got me paranoid about infections. Makes me think though. I’ll bet there is a way to get a BG reading passively through the skin, with an active scanner. Using a laser like the ones phlebotomists use to see blood veins. Here, get your geek on with this…
And since you shared your graph, here’s mine. I couldn’t go back any further because as you can tell I stitched screen shots together to make it one continuous graph. The problem is it auto scales the range. So going any further back to the original diagnosis the scale jumps up to 600, and the rest get skewed to unreadable, so the self scale when only that months data is shown.
!I was Dx at the end of Aug 2017. My A1c was 11.8%, and my BG was 594. After going Keto my BG is fairly stable around 112 avg and my A1c is 5.8%. This took 4 months. The first 2 weeks of Keto I lost 40 pounds and got my blood sugar to stay below 200.
Great progress Bob, congrats! Keto is the One True Way, takes time to get the a1c down of course, and even more time to fully reverse insulin resistance.
The sensors have been used in Europe for around 3 years without reports of infections, and honestly it doesn’t hurt or bug me at all, just a sticker that goes on the back of my arm. Easy peasy, I’m not conscious of it.
I know many groups are researching ways to read blood glucose transdermally. Google’s working on a contact lens with a sensor that will read glucose from the tear fluids on your eye, an Israeli firm is working on an app that will use your phone’s camera to do it, etc etc. But so far all of these devices are failing in trials to show accuracy. They say we’re a year or two away… they’ve been saying that for years. I am not holding my breath.
