What is normal?

When you talk about blood sugars, you often ask the question (or you are ASKED the question), "What is normal"?

Well, normal means lots of things.

For a completely healthy non-diabetic, normal blood sugar readings would be 70-120.
Even right after a meal.

Your body has an amazing ability to secrete insulin that is immediately effective on sugars in your system - synthetic insulin is much slower.

Normal for a Type 2 diabetic that is diet-controlled is about the same as a non-diabetic.

Normal for a diabetic is a bit different. Would we LOVE Emma to always be within 70 and 120 for her readings? ABSOLUTELY.

Will that happen? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Is it normal to see a reading over 200 after breakfast? Yep
Is it normal to see a reading of 50 after a lot of activity? Yep
Is it normal to see an unexplained reading of 300+? Yep
Is it normal to see an unexplained reading below 40? Yep

So, for us, normal is relative. We target numbers in the 80 - 150 range. But its not abnormal to see anywhere from 50 - 300!

For a diabetic, its not about a single number. Its about how we deal with that single number, how we react to trends, and how we fix a situation that we handled incorrectly (overdose, underdose, missed dose, bad pump site, bad insulin, illness, etc)

One reading at a time.