How should diabetics monitor blood sugar?

Professor Chen Liming, leader of the blood glucose monitoring group of the Diabetes Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, emphasized at the launching ceremony of the guessing contest that blood glucose monitoring is an important part of diabetes management. It runs through the entire process of diabetes treatment and efficacy evaluation. The prevention and treatment of acute and chronic complications plays an important role. On the other hand, take a guess before measuring blood sugar to see how far the patient's understanding of his blood sugar is from the actual measured results. Use the results of blood sugar monitoring to adjust the self-management model and guide healthy behaviors. Develop good living habits to help patients better control blood sugar.

 

Guidelines issued by organizations such as the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) all emphasize that self-monitoring of blood glucose is an integral part of comprehensive diabetes management and education, and is recommended for all patients with diabetes. All performed self-monitoring of blood glucose. But we must pursue individualized diabetes treatment, which is not just about medication. Diet, exercise, blood sugar monitoring, and patient education all need to be formulated according to the patient's personal situation. Therefore, the frequency of self-blood glucose monitoring will also vary depending on the patient's blood sugar-lowering plan and blood sugar control. For example, people who are newly diagnosed with diabetes and whose blood sugar has not yet reached the standard need to control their blood sugar as soon as possible, so monitoring is more frequent. Once your blood sugar reaches target, your doctor will ask you to reduce the frequency of monitoring.

 

Here are suggestions for how often to monitor your blood sugar, not too much, not too little. So, how should diabetics monitor blood sugar? People who are hospitalized due to very poor blood sugar control or critical illness should monitor blood sugar 4-7 times a day or as needed for treatment until blood sugar is controlled. Patients who use lifestyle intervention to control diabetes can use blood glucose monitoring to understand the impact of diet control and exercise on blood sugar and adjust their diet and exercise as needed. People who use oral hypoglycemic drugs can monitor fasting or postprandial blood sugar 2-4 times a week, or monitor blood sugar continuously for 3 days in the week before treatment, and monitor blood sugar at 7 o'clock every day (before and after breakfast, before and after lunch, before and after dinner, and before going to bed). People taking insulin therapy can perform corresponding blood glucose monitoring according to the insulin treatment plan:

 

① Patients using basal insulin should monitor fasting blood sugar and adjust the dose of insulin before bedtime based on fasting blood sugar;

 

② Those who use premixed insulin should monitor fasting and pre-dinner blood glucose, adjust the pre-dinner insulin dose based on fasting blood glucose, and adjust the pre-breakfast insulin dose based on pre-dinner blood glucose;

 

③ Those who use mealtime insulin should monitor post-meal blood sugar or pre-meal blood sugar, and adjust the insulin dose before the previous meal based on post-meal blood sugar and pre-meal blood sugar. In terms of monitoring frequency, the latest "China Clinical Application Guidelines for Blood Glucose Monitoring (2015 Edition)" recommends that patients treated with insulin need to monitor blood sugar at least three times a day, and develop individualized monitoring plans based on different treatments, see Table 1. If you have symptoms of hypoglycemia, you need to check your blood sugar at any time. Table 1 Blood glucose self-monitoring plan Note: √: time point when blood glucose needs to be monitored;? : You can choose the time point to monitor blood sugar as appropriate.