Due to many bad things happening to my wife, I now have my mother-in-law living with me. I don’t mind as she’s a sweet old soul and lots of fun to have around. She’s 70YO and very healthy, walks on the treadmill for an hour every day and all that. She does have mild diabetes though and my wife and I have been trying to help her control it. She takes a Glucophage tablet in the morning and the evening.
My question is on those small “accu-check” machines you see at the pharmacy. I’m wondering whether those things are generally accurate. Are there better ones available?
Grandma is Thai and likes her rice quite a bit but it seems to jack-up her blood-sugar to uncomfortable levels. On that note, does anyone know of a good source for a diet for an ancient Thai lady? She’s pretty set in her ways.
Size doesn’t seem to matter with the blood test kits; I use a OneTouch Ultra and they’re pretty good, from what I’ve read. Get a prescription for the test strips, though; they’re about 75 cents apiece OTC.
Thanks. Unfortunately I’m stuck with the price since I can’t really get a prescription for them over here. The problem is that every time grandma goes off her diet either way, I’m always afraid the machine is lying to me. Maybe just paranoia but diabetes is some scary stuff.
There’s a nice analysis of different meters here. I use a OneTouch Ultra too, and I’ve had good results with it. The strips are fairly expensive, but there was no question of my insurance covering it.
LifeScan has a great replacement policy, too. My meter’s display just stopped working one day. I replaced the battery, tried new test strips, but nothing worked. (I’d had it for about three years then, so it had been through quite a lot, since I use its little zippered case as a keychain/wallet.) I called their phone support, and they had a new meter to me in a day and a half, no questions asked.
I had an old school Accu-Check (Roche Diagnostics makes them) before this meter, but that used reflectance to read the strip, instead of the magical capillary action that most meters use now. I’d stay away from the meters that use more than 1 microliter of blood for a test, just because they take longer and are generally clunkier. I think that the newer meters are more accurate than the ones that use more blood, as well.
Thanks. I’ll bounce that review site against what is available here and see if there is something better available. If we have them, I’ll check into getting one of those One-Touch models.
I’ve never dealt with diabetes and unfortunately, grandma isn’t one to complain. Her blood-sugar went down to 40 a couple of days ago and scared the crap out of me. There I was, encouraging a diabetic to eat a cinnibun and wash it down with a Coke. I felt horrible.
So sorry, Testy. I completely missed the Saudi Arabia in your location. What meter is your MIL using? When I was using my Accu-Check way back in the late '80s, the results were pretty accurate and reliable – maybe not as accurate as the one I’m using now, but they always matched how I was feeling. I never felt like I was hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic and my meter was telling me I wasn’t. And when I was using my LifeTouch Basic, considerably bigger and clunkier than the OneTouch Ultra, I felt the same way. Unless your MIL is having readings so high or low that the meter can’t read them (and it will tell you if that’s the case; please see a doctor immediately if this happens), I wouldn’t worry. It should definitely be accurate within five points on a mg/dL scale.
To test the accuracy of the meter, you can(should) get some control solution. There’s a range that the results for the control solution should fall into, and if it falls outside that range, it’s time for a new meter or a new bottle of test strips.
On preview: I’m so glad you’re concerned, Testy. You might want to look at the LifeScan Europe page and see if you’re covered under them, or if they have a division for the middle east.
Hm. Glucophage is usually a quite good medication for diabetes that doesn’t result in lowered blood sugars or weight gain. You sure that reading of “40” was accurate?
Is she on a sulfonylurea like Glyberide or Glipizide or one of the other “ide” medications too? Or insulin shots? Either of those can send the glucose rather low.
Yes, Glibenclamide. The 40 was just unfortunate circumstances. She is supposed to take one tablet before meals and did so. And then the meal was delayed. She scared me to death as she suddenly wasn’t able to get out of her chair and her speech was slurred.
I started this thread as I was unsure how accurate the meters are. We occasionally get odd readings but they tend to be on the high side (over 120). Sometimes we can track it to something she ate but didn’t realize and sometimes it just stays a mystery. I will say that having her around has made me a lot more aware of how many things contain sugar. Like Ketsup, or canned beans. WTF?
Thanks. Control solution is exactly what I’m looking for. As long as I know the instrument is calibrated I can track and control this. She is using an Accu-Check machine and one of my main fears was that when the test strips are imported some fool will leave them on the docks or out at the airport in 120+ degree temperatures for a while. I have no idea what effect that would have on them but I’m sure it wouldn’t be good.
I’ve been looking into some of the hellish side-effects of untreated diabetes and they scare me to death. As I mentioned, this old lady is amazingly tough. She bikes and does the treadmill as well as being active as anything around the house. I’d like to keep her that way as long as possible.
If her blood sugar should happen to get low again, give her some carb to bring it back up (are glucose tablets available where you are? If not, ‘Sweet Tarts’ candy are a good substitute…little tubes of decorator icing work nicely, too.) If it’s low at a time where a meal is not due soon, also give her something to eat with protein in it - nuts, cheese, tofu, meat - the protein will help level out the ‘spike’ the concentrated carb can cause.
One small factoid you may want to note for future reference - if she should become ill, or be under a lot of stress, it will push her blood sugars up. If this happens, she will need to test more frequently and should absolutely not stop taking her medicine (unless directed to do so by her doctor). Placing a call to her medical provider if she develops a cold or bug is a very good idea even if it doesn’t seem like anything all that serious. I’m not sure what type of medical care she has access to, but it’s good to plan ahead for this kind of thing.
Hang in there. Diabetes is serious, but can be managed. It sounds like she’s doing a lot of the right stuff already. Good for her!
I’m going to ask the Dopers with more solid medical knowledge about diabetes than I have to confirm or deny this, however…
It is my understanding that the carbs in brown rice are absorbed more slowly than those in white rice, due at least in part to the extra fiber. If that is indeed the case perhaps you can replace some of the white rice she is (I assume) accustomed to with brown rice, gradually increasing the amount of brown rice in each portion. Just remember that it takes significantly longer to cook brown rice. In which case she can have her rice and eat it, too.
What kind of rice do you use? I’m really new to all of this, but as I just posted in another thread my doctor recommended the low GI diet to treat insulin resistance, and the low GI people say that different rices have different GI rankings*. Basmati rice is supposed to be good, brown rice is ok, long grain is preferable to short grain, glutinous rice is discouraged and Jasmine rice is deemed worse than pure sugar. I understand Jasmine rice is used in a lot of Asian cooking. Perhaps you can change to another variety of rice for an experiement to see if it has a different effect on MIL’s blood sugar levels?
*A good low GI rating is given to foods that are digested and absorbed slowly to produce only gentle rises and falls in blood glucose and insulin levels. Pure sugar rates 100 on the GI index, jasmine rice rates 109, Basmati rates 58. I did read what made jasmine so high compared with sugar but I can’t quite remember and do you think I can find the paragraph again? My source for all of this is The Low GI Diet by Professor Jennie Brand-Miller and Kaye Foster-Powell with Joanna McMillan-Price.
We have used sugar-cubes, honey and, like I said, a Cinnabun with a lot of icing. I must say she liked that last one. That’s good info on leveling out the spike with some protein and I’ll try it if/when she does this again.
She’s pretty religious about taking her medicine and that’s a good thing as the medical care here can be “iffy.” They aren’t all bad or anything, you just have to shop around. I know some extremely good oncologists and surgeons that have helped my wife beat the odds for a long time now but no docs for diabetes.
You both guessed it, she eats Jasmine rice from Thailand. I’m not sure about the supply of brown rice but I can certainly get Basmati so we’ll try that.
I keep trying to get her to eat more protein and fewer carbs but she is a very old lady from a very rural part of Thailand where you usually just eat rice with a tiny bit of fish or vegetables and some of that screaming-hot sauce they use to flavor it. She’s a bit stubborn about that and I wind up wondering just how much I want to lean on an old lady. Makes me feel like a sadist of some weird type.
Anyway, we’ll give the brown-ish versions of rice a try and see how we go.
It’s really better to use glucose if you want to raise a low blood sugar most efficiently. It just needs to be absorbed to begin work. More complex sugars need some processing first, so they don’t raise the blood sugars as quickly.
Thank you. I’ve seen glucose in the stores here. I have no idea what it is supposed to be used for but we’ll get some and give it a try if and when mom gets low again. That was both extremely quick and very frightening. She seemed to go from normal to horrible in just a few minutes.
This list is from an Australian book and might refer exclusively to Australian brands so check labels if you can to see if they’re low GI or try to find a local book on the subject, or on diets specifically for diabetics. Maybe even an American book will give you a wider picture of variation between brands, etc. I know there’s a lot of disagreement out there amongst the various Low GI people out there - while Googling my facts this afternoon, I found a Diabetes site recommending Jasmine rice as “low GI” - but I trust my book because the author is a Professor of Human Nutrition at the University of Sydney and President of the Nutrition Society of Australia, which all sounds pretty impressive to me… and as a bonus, it comes recommended by my doctor.
If a broad, general check on accuracy is needed and a control solution is not available, you can always check your own blood glucose (assuming you are healthy). Also, if grandma is going to the doctors and they are going to check a level, taking along your unit and comparing results is worth considering.
That’s good info on leveling out the spike with some protein and I’ll try it if/when she does this again.