Forgot to test your blood sugar before eating? Even the best diabetes management can become ka-blooey with an error in memory. And sometimes, let’s admit it, we haven’t really forgotten. We just wanted to get to dinner without the delay of a test. It’s easy to just eat and then say, “Oops! I forgot to test!”.
We can try to catch up on testing and tweaking later, but this just won’t work. It blows your average for the day because you don’t know what your blood sugar was or how much insulin, if any, was needed.
If you forget to test your blood sugar and suddenly remember after one or two bites, go ahead and test right away. The reading will likely still be higher than if you had tested when you intended, but at least you’ll have a better idea of your pre-meal blood sugar than a blind guess. If you’re on a rapid-acting insulin, you may want to go ahead and take some if the reading is really good.
If it’s been more than a few bites or a few minutes, there’s probably no point in testing now. Wait an hour after a meal to test and again two hours after a meal. You can make reasonable adjustments after two hours, but again, your average for the day will be more guesswork than tested accuracy.
Be sure to note in your logbook that you missed or postponed testing at the right time. If you use a diary system to help you monitor and manage your diabetes, make sure you include it there as well. By recording it, you highlight it as a mistake in your mind. This will help motivate you to test before eating in the future, especially if it was a case of just saying what testing is, give me the food.
The best, of course, is not to forget in the first place. Here are a few ideas to help you remember to test before you eat. First of all, always have a test kit handy. It seems obvious, but if your kit is at home while you eat out, you won’t be able to test your blood sugar very well.
That’s why I recommend having several test kits. Keep one or two at home – near the kitchen or dining room and by your bed – one in your bag if you carry one with you, maybe one in your lunchbox or locker at work or school. Don’t keep one in your car, though, as temperatures are often too high or too low for accurate readings. Insulin is also very sensitive to temperature.
Try to eat your meals around the same time every day. Not only is this a good idea for blood sugar control, having a regular routine creates and reinforces habits – like testing first, eating later.
If you have a luxury watch with timers and alarms, you can set reminder alarms for testing before meals and for two hours after meals.
Use brightly colored “sticky notes” to remind you. Hang them on the fridge and pantry door, cupboards or wherever you come across them when you go to prepare a meal or eat something. A bright neon purple or bright pink note with a simple: DID YOU TEST? is a quick and easy reminder.
If you wear glasses to read, you can stick the same message on your glasses case. When dining out, you’ll be reminded when you pull out your glasses to read the menu.
Think about the circumstances in which you forgot to test. If you had to do it again, how would you have remembered it? Put all of these things together and make it part of your diabetes management to keep it running smoothly.
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