Today my husband and I went out for brunch. Generally we eat a very low carb diet, protein, veggies, occassionally low carb products and that's about it. As a treat, my husband had, with his 2 eggs and 2 strips of bacon, two pancakes with syrup. He has never had any indication of elevated BGs until today. Today, however, his 1 hour was 13.9, 2 hour 14.9, 3 hour 6.4 and 4 hour was 3.8. I have not checked him for a 5 hour but will do so shortly.
Everything I have read on this list indicates that he is diabetic with these numbers. My understanding is that no matter how much carb a healthy body consumes, its properly functioning pancreas will supply enough insulin to keep the levels from climbing to such heights, and will do this in a timely manner. However, could it be possible that because his body is unused to the carbs, it went temporarily berserk??? I am very suspicious that his HbA1c is normal(5.9) only because he has such lows after his highs.
I, who am the official diabetic one in the family, never went above 8.5!
Hopefully these Canadian values won't confuse you. If you need me to, I will find the conversion factor and post the numbers in "American."
I am worried about him! Please help. Thank you for reading this long and not very exciting post.
Anne

I thought maybe it would be better doing rough number conversions, so here goes.
13.9=250
14.9=270
6.4 =114
3.8 =68

8.5 =153

So there you have it. Hope this makes my above post a little easier to decipher.
Anne

I wonder if he is allergic to the pancakes!!LOL The pancakes and syrup are probably the culprit to this one and no, those are not normal numbers for a normal person. You are correct in assuming that a typical person with a working pancreas will never see numbers like this. Luckily, his body kicks in and he starts to get control of the pancakes :D This might indicate either full blown diabetes or insulin resistance. Either way, I would keep track of these numbers and take them into the Dr. soon.

This is where I consider the HbA1c a faulty test. You said that he has highs followed by lows. When you take a blood sugar of 250 and you take a blood sugar of 50.. Your average of the two is 150. The A1c will only show you the 150 since it gives an average. This gives an indication of control but in reallity, it is anything but.

I would take the log into the Dr and ask for further testing. Good luck

Anne:

For good reason you have cause for concern. Since you are diabetic, I have a feeling you already know the answers to the questions you asked. He is probably a type II, if not, then well on the way. Someone with a normal response to a load of carbohydrates, as you put it, can supply the insulin and move that glucose back out of bloodstream quickly. The things that I already notice as cause for concern are: 1) how high your husband peaked (14.9)--a person with a proper response would probably not exceed 9.0 for long at all if they even did; 2) the 2-hr post-prandial is above 140 mg/dL (~7.0); 3) 3-hr later, he is still above 100 mg/dL, but yes, he is on the way down--consolation is that his pancreas is still working, but trying as hard as it can to keep up and 4) his HbA1c is "normal," but not optimal. Yes, they consider that normal, but ideally, that should be closer to 5.0% or less rather than 6.0%. What is worriesome is that since its elevated, then he is spending some time low and more than he should with elevated blood glucose levels.

I see that while I was typing this in, Mindy already answered you. I would follow her advice and encourage your husband to visit an endocrinologist to check on this.

Any chance that your husband has associated risk factors (sedentary lifestyle, overweight, metabolic syndrome) for the development of type II?

Thank you both for your, as always, knowledgeable and well though out replies. Yes, my beloved husband has so many of the risks for T2 that he could be the poster child! It was bound to happen and I am so glad we decided to check him. Who knows how long this has been going on. Because of the low carbing, his blood test was o.k., but once he deviated from that regime his problem became apparent.
I have been following him this evening and he has not come down below 9. Thankfully, he sees his doc on Wednesday. We have both lost 25-30 pounds and have every intention of keeping at it til we attain healthy weights.
Anne