How often should we test? The 2 hour rule.

The UK Department of Vehicles says that you should test every two hours to avoid low blood sugars whilst driving.

We think that’s a good start: we should test every two hours anyway because it gives us the best chance to know where our blood sugars are and to use that knowledge to avoid lows without having to be high all day.

If we’ve been eating all day we still try to fit in a test within 2 hours of the last test or insulin, but if we have to we just throw in a test to check that blood sugars aren’t going way out.

We were at a birthday party recently and one of our kids was eating too much cake and sweets the whole time. We just tested every 1 hour and 15 minutes. All the readings were higher (around 12 or 13), but it meant we could keep giving insulin to keep him going up over 20 and we were checking enough that we caught him on the down swing before he went low.

Test, track and LEARN

The more you test, the more you will learn about your body and what to do. Everyone’s body is different, but until now we haven’t had the tools to harness our diabetes information so that we can learn from our own patterns.

Now if you test more, you have something to do with the information so you can learn from it.

Put it in the app in seconds. Then look at your charts to see how you’re doing.

You can learn that things have been better than you thought. Or that there are particular times in the day when you struggle more than others.

And we bring this pie chart in when we see our doctors: the 7 and 30 day views give a good snapshot of how we’ve been doing.