Blood Sugar Levels Explained: How to Check Blood Sugar and What Your Numbers Mean

In this episode of Your Checkup, we break down everything you need to know about checking your blood sugar levels at home. Learn the step-by-step process of monitoring your glucose, the importance of timing, and what your readings mean for your overall diabetes management. Whether you're newly diagnosed or looking to fine-tune your routine, this guide will help you understand the numbers and take charge of your health. Tune in to gain clarity and confidence in controlling your diabetes! 

Takeaways

• Blood sugar testing is crucial for diabetes management.
• There are two main types of blood sugar tests: A1C and daily blood sugar checks.
• Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) provide real-time blood sugar readings.
• Finger stick tests are still the most accurate method for checking blood sugar.
• Understanding blood sugar levels can prevent diabetes emergencies.
• A normal fasting blood sugar for non-diabetics is between 70 and 100 mg/dL.
• For diabetics, fasting blood sugar should be between 80 and 130 mg/dL.
• CGMs can notify users of high or low blood sugar levels.
• Interpreting blood sugar readings is essential for effective diabetes management.
• Regular communication with healthcare providers is key to managing diabetes.

Keywords

blood sugar, diabetes management, continuous glucose monitor, glucometer, health education, diabetes testing, A1C, blood glucose levels, patient education, healthcare podcast

Chapters

• 5:00 The Learning
• 18:39 How to Check Blood Sugar

Transcript

Ed Delesky, MD (00:16)
Hi, welcome back to your checkup. We are the Patient Education Podcast, where we bring conversations from the doctor's office to your ears. On this podcast, we try to bring medicine closer to its patients. I'm Ed Delesky a family medicine resident in the Philadelphia area.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (00:30)
and I'm Nicole Aruffo, I'm a nurse.

Ed Delesky, MD (00:32)
And we are so excited that you were able to join us here again today. I think it's so cute when you have that little smirk on your face when I start with the thing. You're doing it right now. Well, it's just like, there's just like, Gen Z is killing this word. There's an aura. Like when we kick off and we're going to start about something and we're going to start talking and giving the people, the good people, the good word on their health and for themselves, their loved ones and their neighbors. And you just get this little smile. And I'm just so happy about that.

You're sipping on your little cup of water right there. And we're actually recording in the morning. So we're having some coffee.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (01:04)
We are.

our morning coffee.

Ed Delesky, MD (01:09)
I know now, now the morning coffee, I'm succumbing you to recording instead of enjoying it on the couch, which you're such a sport. We definitely will. So Thanksgiving, that was something that we did. We hosted and you're a miracle worker and you put it all together and sure with some help from like all parties and everyone brings something, but you did amazing. How do you feel? I'm going to turn had a lot to say about it. He had a great day.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (01:16)
We'll get to the couch after this.

Our intern had a great time. I feel good about it.

Ed Delesky, MD (01:43)
Yeah, I think you're... he's really excited. He's guarding the pelage.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (01:50)
I thought the food was good if I do say so myself.

Ed Delesky, MD (01:53)
It was it was absolutely delicious. We did Sam's turkey, which worked out really well. And I'm over the moon excited about the sides. And everything that we have.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (02:04)
feel better about it once we have a house that's more geographically friendly for hosting.

Ed Delesky, MD (02:12)
That's true. It was definitely fine. It definitely worked out great. But I definitely see what happens is that like wherever either one of the food is and to the hosts is where the people go. And in the beginning, everyone was crammed into our little kitchen. And then if we like sat out where we record, where the TV is and all that, people came out there. And then it was very like it could be very segregated, like some people.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (02:14)
but I thought it was fine.

Ed Delesky, MD (02:41)
stand in the kitchen, some people stand out here. You know that's very much how other things have gone, including Christmas parties and stuff.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (02:50)
And now I get to decorate for Christmas.

Ed Delesky, MD (02:52)
Yep, and do that today. Well, I mean, an open concept would be better for that,

Nicole Aruffo, RN (02:58)
that I'm jazzed up about. I'm excited for us to get more stamps so we can send out our Christmas cards.

Ed Delesky, MD (03:05)
Yeah, that's so cute. I love that.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (03:08)
We got Erica and Freddie's the day after Thanksgiving. And I feel like she does that by design like every year. Like as soon as Thanksgiving's over the next day, you're getting their Christmas card. So funny, I know.

Ed Delesky, MD (03:23)
That's some planet.

When's like the proper social grace to have a Christmas card go out?

Nicole Aruffo, RN (03:29)
I guess like now.

Ed Delesky, MD (03:31)
Like December 1st.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (03:32)
December 1 ish.

Ed Delesky, MD (03:35)
And it takes time to plan it. And there's so many apps these days to like very easily put them together. I mean, they look beautiful. Thanks. You did great.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (03:45)
What are we talking about today?

Ed Delesky, MD (03:47)
La Netscavo.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (03:50)
Wait, do you want to give? Do you want to give your impression thus far of? we talk about our desperate housewives?

Ed Delesky, MD (04:01)
We

we tucked it in there and where I was like not that proud that we were watching desperate house

Nicole Aruffo, RN (04:04)
We're

on season two, but there are like 20 episodes per season or something crazy. Yeah. it took us a while. We're on season two, like six or seven ish. What are your thoughts so far?

Ed Delesky, MD (04:16)
My thoughts are that this is a, there's an overall arc of these women who are of mystery and drama with underlying episode to episode, little bits of comedy. And I think the show is wide range. think it is, I'm a little stuffy here if you can't tell. The show is wide range. It is entertaining and I like it. Sue me. I like it. It's like.

early 2000s housewife drama, and I think it's good. And come after me or people are going to be celebrating this that, you know, bring back Desperate Housewives. It keeps popping up for us and I just can't get off of it. We'll probably make it through three quarters of the show and then stop watching it in favor of the next show.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (05:03)
No, think we're going to finish it.

Ed Delesky, MD (05:05)
I mean, this is a big undertaking. This is one of those like.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (05:08)
It is. This will carry us through probably like maybe all winter.

Ed Delesky, MD (05:13)
Yeah,

that and probably to the next Bravo shows.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (05:16)
Yeah, well have like Summer House soon coming out. Yeah. And next week, wait, is it Summer House or Southern Charm? That's next week.

Ed Delesky, MD (05:23)
Southern charm, think. that's great. Yeah. We need the backbone show that's going to be there. And then you have your other shows that you watch when they come out as needed. Like every week, you look forward to it. So that's my thought. I will continue watching it shamelessly. Excellent. Or with some degree of shame.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (05:46)
Really, we can't wait to live on a street like Wisteria Lane. So idyllic.

Ed Delesky, MD (05:51)
I like someday.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (05:55)
live down the beach. We'll plant the seed now.

Ed Delesky, MD (05:58)
Yeah, I like it.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (06:00)
to our loyal listeners.

Ed Delesky, MD (06:02)
So what are we gonna talk about today, Nick?

Nicole Aruffo, RN (06:04)
We're talking about, we're doing an overview of testing our blood sugar or our blood glucose for diabetes management. Yep. Well, guess there are other reasons why one would have to test their blood sugar, but.

Ed Delesky, MD (06:18)
I would say diabetes is the one that comes to forefront in the mind the most. We did one episode on diabetes earlier and I realized that I made a lot of empty promises in there saying that we were going to like make this whole catalog of episodes.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (06:31)
We are, it's not an empty promise. We just have range.

Ed Delesky, MD (06:34)
Well, that's true. We have a lot of other things to cover. And so we're going to dip our toe back in the diabetes. And like Nikki said, discuss one of the most common things that happens when people have diabetes is the blood sugar and understanding what it is and what it means. So overall, there are multiple ways to assess blood sugar. They fall into two major buckets. There's the hemoglobin A1C and there's the daily blood sugar that you can get.

The A1C is the average three month average blood sugar that is used almost as like a report card. It's a three months because that's about how long your red blood cells last in your body. And we can use that to see how things are going over the course of time. And then this is different from a daily or multi-time daily, multiple times a day blood sugar that you may need to use in a different situation. So those are the two major ways to

evaluate your blood sugar. But Nick, what different ways do we have to measure blood sugar these days? If you're like day to day?

Nicole Aruffo, RN (07:41)
So day to day we have just your regular blood glucose monitoring, so just like your finger stick or a continuous glucose monitor or known as a CGM.

Ed Delesky, MD (07:54)
That's a really cool technology that's come out. And more recently has become more available, which is really awesome. So that's great. So we mentioned two different ways to measure blood sugar on the day to day basis. The finger stick blood glucose monitor gets a small sample of blood, usually from the tip of the finger. While that's the most painful, that's the most accurate. And it uses a little machine called the glucometer, which are going to explain how to do all of this to

get blood sugar at different distinct points during the day. But the continuous glucose monitor is a little more interesting because it's newer and it kind of takes away some of the hassle of having to do the finger stick prick. So can you tell us a little bit more about like what a continuous glucose monitor actually is?

Nicole Aruffo, RN (08:44)
So our CGM is a little device. It's a little sensor that stays on you and it's able to detect the blood sugar in real time. And a lot of these, it's a really cool technology. A lot of them will have like an app on your smartphone. So you can just like open your app, see what your sugar is, or they have like a separate device also that will show what your blood sugar is, but it's.

continuously recording and then it'll notify you if you're going high or low.

Ed Delesky, MD (09:14)
It's really awesome and it's becoming more and more available.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (09:19)
And I also think it's becoming more like people who don't have diabetes and are like, I forget what the brand is called, but it's basically just like a CGM. It's something like you just like pay for it. It's not something like your insurance covers, but like athletes use them or people who are like really into like working out and like not playing with their blood sugar, like looking at like what they eat and how that affects their blood sugar and like their training and stuff. And that's like, it's kind of cool. There's a whole like

blood sugar community out there. Like that book that I read, was really cool. Like I would be interested to like see what that looked like. I think they're not inexpensive though, so.

Ed Delesky, MD (09:53)
because they're

Well, because I think so. So the two major brands of continuous glucose monitor are Freestyle Libre and Dexcom. And those are the two that come to mind. But it almost sounds like this this one for people who don't have diabetes is separate. Is that right? I like that personally. I think that's really important because I think people with diabetes should have the priority.

to get these medicines. This is almost like to the GLP medication thing where like they

Nicole Aruffo, RN (10:35)
Yeah, it's like a whole separate, it's like the same technology. It's not like you can just like buy. mean, maybe you can just buy directly from Dexcom. I don't know, but it's like a different brand that's not diabetes related.

Ed Delesky, MD (10:47)
I like

that because like, you know, like the weight loss medicines, like there's specifically weight loss, GLP medicines that sit in one bucket, but it's the same medicine where the GLP is for diabetes sit in the next bucket. Maybe we can find out the name of the brand. that's all well and good. But let's say that someone is using a continuous glucose monitor or abbreviated CGM. Who is usually using this if someone has diabetes?

Nicole Aruffo, RN (11:14)
It's most often used on people who have type 1 diabetes, I guess more increasingly has been used for type 2 as well. And then people who are on at least one insulin.

Ed Delesky, MD (11:25)
Yeah. So it used to be, and this is like a recent change in the last year or two where you had to be on four blood glucose checks and you had to prove that to the insurance company to be able to qualify for a CGM. And so that means that you were taking insulin at night or in the morning and then with every meal. And that's a lot of insulin. That's a lot of information to present, which creates a very high threshold to be able to qualify for these. So when

Insurances, I believe it was Medicare said that like you can use one insulin check or one insulin use to qualify for a continuous glucose monitor. Well, there's a fair amount of people who are at least on one insulin that opened up a whole group of people that we got great information on. So it's really cool technology, but it's not perfect. I'm sure there are some advantages and disadvantages to the CGM here. What are we thinking when we think of that's good? The good news about CGM's.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (12:25)
Well, the good news about CGMs, like I briefly mentioned a little bit ago, they'll notify you of if your blood sugar is rising higher or going lower. then since it's linked up to your phone in an app, you can give other people access to that. a lot of little kids, parents would like that because their kid can be at school and they can check their sugar. Or if your kid's away at college and you're worried about them, you can see what they're doing.

I know a lot of people will have like, I'm thinking of like, maybe like teenagers specifically, like they'll like give their friends access to it and they can like, check their sugar and they'll like text them if it's low or something. And then there is also increasing evidence that people who wear a CGM will have better blood sugar control because their behavior, like they're looking at it in real time and then their behavior will change based on whatever their sugar is doing. And they're just.

you know, it's that like real time number and you can see like exactly what you're eating, what it's doing to you and just, yeah.

Ed Delesky, MD (13:30)
That's really cool.

Yeah, I've known some people to suggest using like looking at after meals and seeing what it looks like after I'm distracted because our couch is so cozy. like see what effect of certain meal has. I that's so cool. In research that's called the Hawthorne effect. Not to totally nerd out here, but like when you have a group of people that you're conducting an experiment on and their behavior changes because

Nicole Aruffo, RN (13:42)
Peace.

Ed Delesky, MD (14:00)
they're being watched and they know that they're being watched. That's a certain bias in research that clearly is being used here, but to everyone's benefit. So that's an awesome benefit. But I mean, there's a couple of drawbacks. I'll just say here that like sometimes they're not the most accurate at the peak levels of blood sugar or the very low levels of blood sugar. And so

Nicole Aruffo, RN (14:24)
Yeah, like typically I know if you like are getting an alarm, then it's recommended to check with a finger stick, which like we'll go more into to kind of like test that. I did one time hear one of like the our endocrinologist explained to a parent who I think they were like just getting a CGM and he explained the CGM. I hope I don't butcher this like a CGM is kind of like

a thermostat in your house. So like that reading could be different than like it might could be like a little off than like a finger stick or like a blood draw would be. So like if the thermostats in your kitchen and you have the oven on and you're cooking, that reading might be different than what, you know, like your upstairs bedroom or like the living room or something might be. Yeah, so like you might get a different reading on your CGM versus a finger stick.

Ed Delesky, MD (15:23)
Right. would say that finger stick is probably more accurate because that comes directly from the blood. So in those moments where the blood sugar is low and mind you, we're going to have a whole episode on hypoglycemia, low blood sugar. But if it's low on the CGM, you should probably check it with a manual glucometer. Yeah. And then same thing when it's high, if it's above 250, I think they sometimes like the accuracy does tend to

Nicole Aruffo, RN (15:50)
Yeah, it could be like 251 or it could be like 300.

Ed Delesky, MD (15:55)
Yeah. So again, checking with the CGM is also important because once again, we're going to have episodes on high blood sugar emergencies because I just even saw someone in the hospital who like had no idea that this could possibly happen or another person who we were reading about who went to the intensive care unit first time new diabetes showed up high blood sugar emergency. So it'd be great if we can talk about that at some point soon. And also the CGM is like

being that they're a wearable device, they can be a little daunting or tricky because now you're going to have something that is on you. But they're really just about the size of a coin and they stick on the back of your arm. And the pharmacist should be able to show you how to put it on.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (16:40)
Like the Libre is that little, think the Dexcom's a little bigger.

Ed Delesky, MD (16:43)
or

I think the next comes a little bit bigger. They're rather simple to put on. You know, you just read the instructions that come in the box. There's probably a bunch of YouTube videos out there of like how to's about people trying to do this because they're really common. And I think a lot of children use this. So while maybe like anything, something that's new can be a little intimidating at first. This could be a great opportunity and a discussion that you and your doctor might be able to have. Say you have diabetes.

So we just took some time talking about continuous glucose monitor because it's new, it's sexy, but the most reliable commonplace, cheap, affordable thing to use is the glucometer. And so we're going to take a second here and dive in about why it's so important. So glucometers are extremely important because they get blood from the fingertip, which, albeit painful, is the most accurate place outside of a blood draw to get blood.

very commonly used and usually people, if you have an insulin are recommended to start checking your blood sugar at home. I've seen a lot of recommendations from like the American Diabetes Association where if you don't take insulin, you don't necessarily need to take blood sugars at home, but your doctor or whoever's taking care of you might say something different. And I would follow their recommendations, of course, because once again, this isn't medical advice.

I feel like we have a good grasp on the ins and outs of what a blood glucose monitor is. But I mean, what's the step by step guide to actually get that number? Because I feel like this can be daunting. There's a lot of different pieces. They go by different names that are unfamiliar. And I know ordering these is like I just close my eyes and I try to give them as many as possible. But there's not a lot of time to give that education. So if we can take that time now.

to really dive in about how to take a finger glucose check.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (18:42)
So to check our blood sugar on our finger, you start with washing your hands. You can wipe it with alcohol if you want to when you have them. If you do wipe it with alcohol, make sure that you give it a sec for that to dry before pricking your finger. And then the little finger pricker is called a lancet. Most often at home, it's one device that you can use multiple times and you just like twist the bottom once you want to prick your finger.

And also on them, I think you can also change the size of the lancet. So like if you need to get more blood out, you can make it a little bit bigger. So prick your finger and it's important to the side of your finger, not directly on where like your fingerprint is because the sides of your finger will bleed easier. And then switch your finger each time that you're doing it. And then

Once you get the little drop of blood for however much your test strip needs, you put the test strip into the glucometer, put the blood into the strip, and then the strip will kind of like suck it up, and then you'll get your blood sugar reading.

Ed Delesky, MD (19:53)
And the glucometer should be on before all this happens? Yeah. the test strip is in there already? then the blood goes on? Yeah. OK. And then what?

Nicole Aruffo, RN (19:56)
That was probably an important step.

and then you get your blood sugar reading, you discard the lancet if it's something that you're discarding and like a one time use thing. And if you're someone who gets insulin, you probably have a sharps container already, so put it in there.

Ed Delesky, MD (20:18)
OK. Even at home. Sharp's container at home. Good thing to have. if like people running around who like little children or grandchildren who you may not like they may not be intending to get into stuff like that. Yeah. So good to have a Sharp's container at home. Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt. OK. You know, in that way, taking what is like a pretty complicated process for not doing this before. It's a lot like to break skin and make blood like that's an intimidating thing.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (20:47)
I feel like it is kind of like painful. I only know when I've like given blood and they like check your hemoglobin before. I feel like after even with like having like a huge needle in your arm, feel like after I'm like, my God, my finger is so sore.

Ed Delesky, MD (21:01)
Yeah. This is like

no small thing. Yeah. And so you mentioned like not doing it right on the pad. That's because it won't bleed as much. And then also, you're just using your. All the time, so the little trick is to use it on the side. That's awesome. I'm going to add that in. See, like we don't like. You can do as much or as little like diabetes education in your visits as you want, but like taking the time to be able to talk about something like this is like.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (21:12)
And you're like using your fingers.

It's like a baby can use their toe or heel.

Ed Delesky, MD (21:34)
So in that first part of the episode, we were able to dive into glucometer-based, know, like finger stick blood sugar measurements, continuous glucose monitor, and have a great conversation about those. But once you actually get that information, it's another thing to put it into practice and interpret it for the betterment of your health. Interpreting a blood glucose measurement is really important.

High blood sugars can be signs of diabetes emergencies, like something called diabetic ketoacidosis. It can prompt you to reach out to your doctor. Maybe they call you in the office. They check your urine. And maybe there are something called ketones in your urine that need to be addressed emergently. Or if you are feeling strange, lightheaded, dizzy, sweaty, heart racing, maybe you needed to check your blood sugar to see if your low blood sugar was there. That can also be a danger to your health as well.

All of these things we're going to dive in further. But let's really get into what the glucose goals are regularly. Because like we said earlier, there's the hemoglobin A1C, which is the three month blood sugar. But then there's the day to day. I'm taking my blood sugar certain times of day. What does it possibly mean for me? So if someone's waking up in the morning and they don't have diabetes, a normal fasting blood sugar

Fasting, meaning you haven't eaten anywhere from eight to 12 hours before then, is somewhere between 70 and 100. When people have diabetes, they have a different goal, and you'll see different ranges from different societies that recommend different things, but generally, that fasting morning blood sugar is somewhere between 80 and 130, especially when someone's taking insulin. After meals, and now this, you get into a little bit of a strategy about what people...

are recommended to check. But after meals, a lot of times people are recommended if they have diabetes to have blood sugars about less than 180. At least here in the United States, we do have some listeners who are abroad, but with the measurement systems that we use here, it's about less than 180. And that's measured about one to two hours after your meal. The American Diabetes Association recommends focusing on pre-prandial or blood sugars before meals.

And then if your blood sugar isn't at goal, your A1C goal, which we're going to talk about, then you can focus on blood sugars after. So, I mean, we can kind of walk through. We got all that information about a normal fasting blood sugar or a blood sugar after meals.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (24:12)
do a lot of people take it after they eat.

Ed Delesky, MD (24:15)
So people do. And it's usually if their A1C isn't controlled and they need extra, extra help. let's say their A1C is eight, nine, depending on your age, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, that, yeah, maybe you're checking two hours after you eat to see if like the meals that you're taking are really spiking your blood sugar. Yeah. But if I have someone who's just taking metformin and their A1C is like seven,

I'm probably not having them check their blood sugar. But that's my own practice. Other people probably have different styles anyway. All of that can be overwhelming. And so the take home message is that you should talk with your own doctor about when to check your blood sugar. But those are the ranges that we mentioned. There's also a tip in the scale towards this concept called time and range. And now that we have continuous glucose monitors, we have much more information about

where people's blood sugars are all throughout the day. Can you tell us what the general rule of thumb is for blood sugar control with a continuous glucose monitor?

Nicole Aruffo, RN (25:28)
Yeah, so with the CGM, generally your sugar should be between 70 and 180, about 70 % or greater of the time. And that's generally a good sign of good blood sugar control.

Ed Delesky, MD (25:43)
And this is a really cool benchmark to hit because this next part we're going to talk about is the A1C. In school, children get grades every day. You see like, I got this test and my grade was good. I got an A, or I did well on my homework. And you get this short term positive feedback about how you're performing. But then you also get the report card. For a long time, we really

The report card was the basic thing in diabetes care. He had the hemoglobin A1C. Every three months, you're getting a check and you're seeing, is my blood glucose in range?

Nicole Aruffo, RN (26:23)
the A1C, which is a measure of your blood sugar over the last three months. So you can't trick your doctor with faking a good blood sugar because they can tell what the average has been over the last few months. Because this is measuring the blood sugar that's attached to your red blood cells and a red blood cell lasts for 90 days. So you can't fake that one.

No. Can't fake a good blood sugar with a bad A1C.

Ed Delesky, MD (26:54)
And just a reminder is that it's really important to control that A1C and get it as close to your personal goal as possible because it reduces the risk of kidney disease, eye disease, and nerve problems.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (27:07)
And like, because the A1C is your average over the last three-ish months, like having one in the moment finger-sick of a high blood sugar is like, okay, but then having a higher A1C means that your blood sugar was elevated for about three months, which is not good.

Ed Delesky, MD (27:26)
Right. And so we get more rapid information or more rapid feedback from the continuous glucose monitors when we consider that time and range of like 70 to 180, trying to get that above 70 % of the time. what's a normal for a young person, an A1C goal that is good for them?

Nicole Aruffo, RN (27:52)
typically below seven.

Ed Delesky, MD (27:55)
So the hemoglobin, so the best goal for someone who is young and that's a dynamic moving target based on who you call young is a below seven by some measurements. This personal goal is made between you and your doctor because as you age, your hemoglobin A1c goal very well may be higher. I would say that there's more of instead of a hard number, it's more of a

range of how comfortable you feel like seven, seven and a half. But as you get higher, there are more there are risks associated with that. And as you get your A1C lower, there are risks associated with that as well. And so we call seven a decent goal for young people with diabetes. But as we age, there's a lot of good reasons to consider increasing that goal to something higher. Yeah. To not get so stringent blood sugar control.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (28:55)
And if you, so there are certain blood sugar values, at least we'll just talk about here what we use in the US. Where if you're having an A1C that's between like five to seven, you're generally good. Your blood sugars are ranging on average about 97 to 154. Yeah. So not too high. They're in like that good range. Then you get a little bit higher. Maybe you're like a nine. We have a 212 for that. And then

you get higher maybe your A1C is like 11 or 12 you're at like 269 to 298 which are really high so like an A1C of 11 you're like oh like that's over 7 maybe that's bad but here an A1C over 11 your average blood sugar is 269 which is really high.

Ed Delesky, MD (29:45)
That's

lot of sugar all the time to be chilling out in your body.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (29:51)
Yeah, this chart's actually pretty cool. Which I don't know, I feel like this isn't as like known. Because I feel like even recently, like my dad went to the doctor and then he texted us and was like, this was my A1C. Like it was fine, but he's like, what does that mean?

Ed Delesky, MD (30:06)
Right. Because like the. Yeah, the pre diabetes range is like five point seven to six point four. And then once you hit six point five is when you tip over to the formal diagnosis of diabetes. the rule of thumb that I always was taught from listening that I've done within the last year is that what exactly like you said, like the A1C of seven gets you to about one fifty. And then for every hemoglobin A1C point above that, you add 30.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (30:07)
The pre-diabetes.

Ed Delesky, MD (30:34)
And then that makes your way up to other things. Like you said, eight, 180, nine, two, 12. And like we're talking those goals after meals, like two hours is less than 180. And you're like morning waking blood sugar should be somewhere between 80 and 130. And I mean, the proof is in the pudding here. So check out your labs. Look at your A1C. See what the how you can interpret this and do a little math and see where you may fall in this chart.

So in this episode, we were able to define different measurement techniques to determine your blood glucose and actually talk about what those blood glucose measurements mean for you and your health overall. And so keep an eye out on further episodes as we continue to dive through diabetes and as we enter a sweet part of the year with lots of treats around the holidays. And hopefully today you were able to learn something that was useful for yourself, a loved one or...

Nicole Aruffo, RN (31:30)
a neighbor checking their blood sugar.

Ed Delesky, MD (31:32)
Please check out our website. It can be found if you just type in our name on Google and podcast, your checkup podcast. Please check out our email. You can send us a message, yourcheckuppod at gmail.com. Find us on Instagram. Leave us some fan mail. If you have any stories that you'd like us to explore or you have a question or you'd like to just reach out to us and say how much you love the podcast, that'd be great. If you're listening to this podcast, try to find one person.

that you think might benefit and you'd like to share the podcast with this week. That's something that I'm asking of you. I'd like to think we're giving you some good information here. And my ask is that you reach out and share this with one person that could be, could find some interest in this, perhaps a neighbor. And so once again, thank you for coming back and most importantly, stay healthy, my friends until next time I'm at Ed Delesky Thank you and goodbye. Bye.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (32:17)
Perhaps a neighbor?

I'm Nicole Aruffo

Tina.

Ed Delesky, MD (32:36)
This information may provide a brief overview of diagnosis, treatment, and medications. It's not exhaustive and is a tool to help you understand potential options about your health. It doesn't cover all details about conditions, treatments, or medications for a specific person. This is not medical advice or an attempt to substitute medical advice. You should contact a healthcare provider for personalized guidance based on your unique circumstances. We explicitly disclaim any liability relating to the information given or its use.

This content doesn't endorse any treatments or medications for a specific patient. Always talk to your healthcare provider for complete information tailored to you. In short, I'm not your doctor. And make sure you go get your own checkup with your own personal doctor.

Nicole Aruffo, RN (33:12)
I am not your nurse.