In my first post about blood glucose–a few days ago–I recommended testing your glucose with a self-test kit. Right afterwards, I realized I was recommending something I hadn’t done yet, taking for granted that I had already decided I would eventually get one. I should’ve bought one and tested myself before the post.
So yesterday, I did that. For $22 I got the Walgreens True Result monitor and a box of 25 spring-loaded lancets. The Walgreens monitor came with test strips, but other brands’ didn’t. It’s around $30 for strips from another brand! And a study at the International Diabetes Center in Minneapolis (posted on the manufacturer’s site–small concern) showed it to be as accurate as 3 name-brand units. ((Clinical Study Supports Accuracy of Store Brand…))
After calibrating the unit with the included glucose solution, it was time to check my blood. Dinner was salmon, broccoli, and basil pesto. I eat a lot of salmon and broccoli, so this was good to see how a meal I eat often affects me. I checked about an hour and a half after eating and got this result:
That’s pretty low, considering last year my fasting glucose was 90. On the other hand, the FDA allows 20% margin of error in this case, and I didn’t eat many carbs, so it’s not a great test of my “glucose tolerance”, per se. I tested again this morning. My 8-hour fasting glucose was 80. At first I was confused as to how it was so close to last night’s but again the glycemic load of the dinner was low, so it probably wasn’t going to be much different anyway. Also, whether or not this is accurate is not as important to me as any trends that I might discover over time and the relative effects of certain foods I eat.
The value of doing this was finding out how easy and painless it is! The hardest part was deciding which brand to go with and thoroughly reading the instructions, which I HIGHLY recommend so you don’t waste strips. I stand by my recommendation. After all, it’s more effective and a helluva lot cheaper than a Fitbit.