Good afternoon!
I have a real quick question. I’m sure it’s fine but it’s the first day I’m running into this and I want to make sure I shouldn’t be concerned. I’m strict Ketogenic to treat my seizure condition and auto immune diseases (as well as drop weight) and thanks to keto diligence, I’ve been off all meds (including my seizure meds) now for the past 3 weeks and have lost 27 lbs (and counting).
As I’m doing this in large part to manage my grand maul seizure condition, I need to track my blood for ketones to insure I’m ALWAYS in ketosis. I run my blood through my meter three times a day. I tend to stay pretty steady in the 3.0mm but over the last few days it’s been going into the 6.0 and then 8.0. Now it’s saying “HI” on the meter instead of giving a number (according to the manual, it tops out at 8.0 so anything above 8 registers as “HI”.). Not to be paranoid but I just need to know if others have run into this problem.
I believe to be considered ketoacidosis you have to be like at 15mm and up in addition to having glucose in the system which I know I don’t because my keto is so strict so I’m sure I’m fine. If it helps, I stay around (sometimes below) 10 g carbs daily, 80% fat and very moderate protein (70-80g based on my lean body mass). I just needed to post because I need to know if this is concerning because I rarely hear anyone in this community having ketones that high… most people talk about going as high as 6. Please advise! Thank you all so much!!
My Nova Max ketone meter says "HI" now, should I be worried?
I have a Nova Max, but haven’t rocked my ketones that high! I personally wouldn’t be worried, but you should ask your doctor if you’re concerned. From what I understand, as long as you produce insulin and have low blood sugar, there isn’t a risk of ketoacidosis. Do you check your blood sugar too?
I happen to have the Nova Max meter as well, so I just tested my blood ketones at 3.4 mmol and blood glucose at 89 mg/dL and I’ve only tested as high as 5.3 mmol in the past, but I don’t test anywhere near as often as you do.
Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) occurs in part because there is an absence of insulin and even ketones require a small amount of insulin to be shuttled into the cells that use them, so DKA occurs when blood glucose and blood ketones get high enough to cause acidemia and insulin is essentially absent.
I’m not a doctor so I can’t advise you, but if my blood ketones were over 8.0 mmol and my blood glucose were normal, I wouldn’t be concerned and this is coming from a recovered T2DM who once tested with a blood glucose of 525 mg/dL shortly after I was first diagnosed in 1998.
That being said, the Nova Max doesn’t generally get good reviews and people like Jimmy Moore hate it, so I also have to wonder if it isn’t a meter issue.
I can’t afford to just test blood ketones over and over again, but recently I tested my blood glucose 3 times in a row within 3 minutes in 2 different fingers and ALL 3 readings were different as a much as +/- 10 between all the readings.
Any chance you recently ingested a concentrated MCT product or an exogenous ketone supplement that might be atypically elevating blood ketones?
Definitely test your blood glucose.
Pretty sure you have to get into the 20s for it to be an issue and then combined with problematic BG.
I have never used them. I have a Ketonix which works differently.
Are you sure it wasn’t just saying hello? 
IF you did have DKA, you would be pretty sick. My ex-wife was hospitalized for it, and she was very sick. So if your feeling fine, I wouldnt worry about it.