When you are diagnosed with diabetes, your number one concern becomes understanding what is considered high blood sugar. Your blood sugar is what keeps your entire body running properly and when it gets out of control you can experience some intense and severe symptoms. Although diabetes is a health condition that millions of people around the world live with and live normally with, this is because they are educated on diabetes and know how to handle their lifestyle appropriately. The only way to know for sure what your blood glucose levels are at is to test them and as a diabetic a testing machine is essential.

The absolute best times to test your blood sugar levels are before you eat and before you go to bed. As you can imagine, you want to know what your true blood sugar levels are at and if you test after you’ve eaten you have already altered them with any additional sugars you have put into your body. Your blood sugar needs to be at or within a certain range of number before you eat and before you go to bed due to the long period of time without eating during sleep and the foods you choose to put into your body that can alter your numbers. Now, before you eat a meal you should test your blood sugar and find levels in and around these suggestions: 80-120 mg/dl. Any higher or lower than this can mean you don’t have enough sugar in your system or too much. Before going to bed you should have these numbers 100-140 mg/dl.

What Are Normal Blood Glucose Levels?

Now that you have an idea as to what are considered high levels, let’s take a quick look at the normal levels you want to be looking at on a regular basis. The first blood glucose test you will take is first thing in the morning before any meals or beverages are ingested. After 6-8hours of fasting, your levels should be between 70 to 130 milligrams per deciliter. Now, what is known as a postprandial test which is 2hours after you’ve eaten, your results should be in and around 180 milligrams per deciliter.

When your blood sugar levels rise above these recommended numbers you can experience symptoms including:

• Increased urination
• Excessive thirst
• Change/alters in vision
• Weight loss
• Numbness in hands and feet
• Muscle cramps
• Fatigue
• Increased hunger

What’s worse than these symptoms is that many people don’t recognize or connect these symptoms and continue walking around with high blood sugar. In North America today there are tens of thousands of people walking around with type 2 diabetes and don’t even know it. They are living with high blood glucose levels and without the proper treatment this particular case of diabetes can become so out of control that the most extreme symptoms and side effects will present themselves. It is important for all diabetes patients to know what is considered high blood sugar and what is considered normal levels because extreme on either end of the spectrum can lead to death in the most severe cases.