What Can You Do When Your Sugar Is High

Do Take Medication Or Insulin If Required

Not Eating Sugar Yet High Blood Sugar Levels?

If you are taking insulin and on a sliding scale, check your scale and take your medication as prescribed.

If you skipped a dose of an oral medication, contact the pharmacy for instructions on getting back on track with your scheduled dose.

TIP: If you frequently find you are forgetting to take medication, try setting an alarm on your phone for daily reminders. Its also helpful if you keep your medication in plain sight and in a place you visit frequently such as a kitchen or bathroom.

How Do I Check My Blood Sugar

You use a blood glucose meter to check your blood sugar. This device uses a small drop of blood from your finger to measure your blood sugar level. You can get the meter and supplies in a drug store or by mail.

Read the directions that come with your meter to learn how to check your blood sugar. Your health care team also can show you how to use your meter. Write the date, time, and result of the test in your blood sugar record. Take your blood sugar record and meter to each visit and talk about your results with your health care team.

You Know That Low Blood Sugar Can Make Your Head Spin But Can High Blood Sugar Too Make You Feel Dizzy Or Lightheaded

The answer is yes, but the way this happens is not what youd expect.

Connection Between High Blood Sugar and Feelings of Dizziness

High blood sugar can make you dizzy because of the physiologic response to high glucose levels, says Stacy Mitchell Doyle, MD, resident physician of FoodTherapyMD and long-time advocate of plant-based nutritional protocols.

In order to clear the sugar from the blood, your body will try to eliminate the sugar by urinating it out, explains Dr. Doyle. So the result is dehydration, which makes you feel dizzy.

The feeling wont be like the dizziness youd experience if you were to sit strapped to a rotating stool and rapidly swung around.

It also wont be the same sensation youd get if you were to suffer an attack of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. high blood sugar, dizzy

But the sensation could still be described as having a dizzy-like or lightheadedness feeling.

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Focus On Healthy Fats

When incorporating fat into a diabetes meal plan, you should focus on foods that supply healthy fats while limiting unhealthy fats such as trans fats. Choose from mono- and polyunsaturated fats, and foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids. Examples of healthy fat food sources include avocado, oils , olives, nuts , seeds , and fatty fish such as salmon and albacore tuna.8

What Should I Do If My Blood Sugar Gets Too Low

Low blood sugar is also called hypoglycemia . It means your blood sugar level drops below 70. Having low blood sugar is dangerous and needs to be treated right away. Anyone with diabetes can have low blood sugar. You have a greater chance of having low blood sugar if you take insulin or certain pills for diabetes.

Carry supplies for treating low blood sugar with you. If you feel shaky, sweaty, or very hungry, check your blood sugar. Even if you feel none of these things, but think you may have low blood sugar, check it.

If your meter shows that your blood sugar is lower than 70, do one of the following things right away:

chew 4 glucose tablets
drink 4 ounces of fruit juice
drink 4 ounces of regular soda, not diet soda or
chew 4 pieces of hard candy

After taking one of these treatments, wait for 15 minutes, then check your blood sugar again. Repeat these steps until your blood sugar is 70 or above. After your blood sugar gets back up to 70 or more, eat a snack if your next meal is 1 hour or more away.

If you often have low blood sugar, check your blood sugar before driving and treat it if it is low.

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Why Do I Need Sugar In My Blood

If you are looking for ways how to bring blood sugar down, here are 7 foods that help lower your blood sugar effectively. Blood sugar comes from food. Its your bodys main source of energy. These sugars are carried to the cells throughout your body by your blood, providing them with the energy they need to function optimally.

Try this 60 Second Trick To Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

For a person with diabetes or pre-diabetes, their body does not effectively regulate blood sugars. This causes levels to become either too high or too low. Long term, frequent high blood sugar can lead to a number of serious health complications. Kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, nerve damage, vision impairment, joint damage, are just a few. Learning to regulate your blood sugar, as well as how to lower high blood sugar, is essential for your health. It is important to know how to bring blood sugar down once it has gotten too high.

Ask Your Doctor How Often You Should Be Checking Your Blood Sugar

Blood sugar control is crucial when youre living with type 2 diabetes. Dips and spikes can not only make you feel cranky and sluggish, but they can also wreak havoc on your personal health.

The most serious effects of blood sugar swings are a higher risk for diabetes-related health complications such as stroke, heart disease, and nerve damage .

For the record, the American Diabetes Association notes that you have diabetes if one of the following applies to you:

Your blood glucose after fasting is 126 milligrams per deciliter or higher.
Your blood glucose two hours after eating a meal is 200 mg/dl or higher.
Your hemoglobin A1C is 6.5 or higher.

The tricky part is that with type 2 diabetes you may not feel it when blood sugar levels are too high, according to the ADA. It feels different for everyone. Not everyone will have the same symptoms, and some individuals will have no symptoms at all, says Lori Zanini, RD, CDE, a Los Angelesbased former spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Because blood sugar management is so important to your overall health with type 2 diabetes, you need to take action if you think your levels may be out of control, even if youre feeling totally fine.

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Exercise To Lower Blood Sugar

Exercise is great for regulating your blood sugar levels overall. It is a great tool for getting your levels back down when they spike. Exercise causes your muscles to use more glucose and it helps your body to better utilize insulin. Exercise gets your blood flowing, causing your body to use up any excess sugar in the blood, regulating your levels. As you get your heart rate up during exercise, you release endorphins and your body starts to feel better. Exercising to lose belly fat is a great way to naturally lower your blood sugar.

To be effective, you want to get your heart rate up for at least 10 to 15 minutes. Monitor sugar intermittently to make sure your level doesnt drop too quickly. Moderate walking works well to get the blood pumping. Exercise is the fastest way to bring down blood sugar second to administering insulin. Frequent, regular exercise is important for maintaining healthy sugar levels. As always, be sure to check with doctor first before starting a new exercise routine.
NOTE: Exercise is not recommended for people with diabetic ketoacidosis. See your doctor for appropriate interventions.
Weight training is also great for lower blood sugar. It builds muscle that burns glucose more efficiently. Be aware that you may see a rise in levels when your first begin weight training, so be sure to monitor your levels.

What Are The Signs & Symptoms Of High Blood Sugar Levels

How to bring down high blood sugar levels (hyperglycemia)

Signs of high blood sugar levels include:

Peeing a lot: The kidneys respond by flushing out the extra glucose in urine. People with high blood sugar need to pee more often and in larger amounts.
Drinking a lot: Someone losing so much fluid from peeing that often can get very thirsty.
Losing weight even though your appetite has stayed the same: If there isn’t enough insulin to help the body use glucose, the body breaks down muscle and stored fat instead in an attempt to provide fuel to hungry cells.
Feeling tired: Because the body can’t use glucose for energy properly, a person may feel unusually tired.

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How Are High Blood Sugar Levels Treated

Treating high blood sugar levels involves fixing what caused them in the first place. Your diabetes health care team will give you specific advice on how to keep your blood sugar levels in a healthy range. But here are some ways to manage the common causes of high blood sugar levels:

Reason for High Blood Sugar Level	What to Do
Not getting enough insulin or other diabetes medicine	Make sure that you take the proper type of insulin and the correct dose at the right time. Check that insulin is not expired. Make sure that all equipment is working properly. Diabetes medicines may need to be changed or adjusted check with your diabetes health care team.
Not following the meal plan	Work with a registered dietitian to make adjustments to your meal plan as needed. Adjust insulin/pills when you eat more or less than recommended on your meal plan .
Not getting enough exercise
Check your blood sugar levels frequently.
Use of other medicines that can increase blood sugar	Contact your diabetes health care team if you start taking any other medicine. Your insulin or pills may need to be adjusted while you take the medicine thats causing high blood sugar levels.

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What Are The Risks Of Hyperglycemia

Hyperglycemia can be a sign that your body isnt getting enough insulin. It is normal for patients with T1D to get hyperglycemia, and most of the time this is simply treated with insulin. If the body does not have insulin for approximately 8 hours, you could develop a condition called diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA.

In DKA, your body breaks down fat for energy because it doesnt have enough insulin to use the sugar in your blood. This produces chemicals called ketones, which make your blood more acidic.

DKA is dangerous. Too much acid in your blood can make you pass out or even cause death.

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How To Lower Morning Blood Sugar

Whether a morning high is caused by the dawn phenomenon or something else, here are a few things you can try to lower your blood sugar levels:

Physical activity when you wake up can help bring your glucose level down. Even going for a walk can be helpful.
To learn about exercise guidelines and glucose management strategies, click here.
Read Adam Browns take on walking the most underrated diabetes exercise strategy.

Eating a light breakfast can help keep a morning high from increasing even more. Taking your mealtime insulin will help lower your blood sugar.

Adam Brown suggests eating a breakfast that is low in carbs, and notes that sometimes mealtime insulin has to be adjusted in the morning. One of his favorite breakfasts is chia pudding, since it has little impact on glucose levels see what else he eats for breakfast here.

Catherine Newman has six popular, low-carb, delicious recipes in The Morning Meal.

Intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding approaches to meal timing can also help people keep morning blood sugar levels in range. Read Justine Szafrans Intermittent Fasting: Stabilizing My Morning Blood Sugars to learn more.

For additional ways to navigate mornings, read seven strategies from Adam Brown in A Home Run Breakfast with Diabetes.

This article is part of a series on time in range.

Hyperglycemia And Ketoacidosis: Causes And Symptoms

Hyperglycemia and ketoacidosis may be caused by too little insulin or they may be caused by other factors such as illness, stress, or poor eating or drinking habits. Its important to know what to look for to keep your child healthy and safe:

Symptoms of hyperglycemia include:

Ketones are shown to be present with testing
Nausea and/or vomiting
Fruity/medicine breath
Dehydration
Deep rapid breathing
Fatigue

How Do I Test For Ketones

To test your childs ketone levels:

Either place the ketone strip in a stream of urine or collect urine in a cup and dip the ketone strip into the urine.

Once youve saturated the strip with urine, wait 15 seconds.

Compare the color of the strip to the colors on the ketone strip bottle, which represent different amounts of ketones in the urine trace, small, moderate, or large. Delayed reading of the strip can cause false results.

When To Call For Medical Advice

It is important to note that very high blood glucose levels can be dangerous and it is important to be aware of the symptoms and risk factors of the following conditions:

Diabetic ketoacidosis a short term complication most commonly associated with type 1 diabetes
Hyperosmolar Hyperglycaemic State a short term complication most commonly associated with type 2 diabetes

If you are struggling to keep your blood glucose levels under control, speak to your GP or consultant who can advise you or refer you onto a diabetes education course.

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Best Ways To Lower Blood Sugar Quickly

When treated early, you can bring high blood sugar levels down and prevent complications, including DKA.

Some sources suggest that drinking water or eating a high protein snack can quickly lower your blood sugar levels, though there isnt enough research to support this.

If you have high blood sugar and need to lower it fast, try the following methods:

Treatment For High Ketone Levels

Diabetes Tips : How to Reduce High Blood Sugar

Treating high ketone levels can immediately help you avoid hospitalization for DKA. Work with your doctor to decide what you need to do to help manage moderate ketone levels. If youre unable to treat at home or if your levels continue to rise, youll need to receive medical treatment. Treatments can include:

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Causes Related To Lifestyle

Physical inactivity

Exercising prompts your body to burn more energy than usual, and, as a result, consume more glucose. Maintaining a low level of physical activity, on the other hand, means more glucose will remain in the bloodstream. This raises your overall blood glucose values in the process.

Exercise also makes our body more insulin sensitive, which means we will require less insulin for the rest of the day to control glucose levels.

Stress

Part of the bodyâs fight-or-flight response to stress is to produce additional glucose. Another facet of that response is an increase in the hormone cortisol. High cortisol can reduce the bodyâs sensitivity to insulin. As a result, blood glucose levels may also increase.

Poor sleep

A lack of quality sleep can inhibit how much insulin your body can release. It can also cause the production of cortisol, which makes it harder for insulin to work. When your bodyâs insulin cannot properly metabolize the glucose in your blood, the glucose remains there and your glucose levels rise.

Get better insight into your glucose levels

Want to gain a better understanding of how your body responds to glucose? Try monitoring your glucose levels in real time with the Nutrisense Continuous Glucose Health Program.

Stick To Your Medication And Insulin Regimen

Skipping a dose of medication or insulin can be harmful to your body and increase your blood sugar levels.

Its important to stick to your treatment plan and follow your doctors instructions for taking your medication.

Summary

Healthful lifestyle habits can help people manage their blood sugar levels over the long term, such as eating a balanced diet, getting regular exercise, staying hydrated, and getting good sleep.

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Tingling Hands And Feet

Over the years, hyperglycemia can begin to impact nerve function and eventually cause nerve damage, called neuropathy, Dr. Hatipoglu says. The most common kind of neuropathy is peripheral, according to the NIDDK, which affects the extremities. You might start noticing feelings of tingling, numbness, or burning in your hands, feet, arms, and legs, per the Mayo Clinic.

Maintain An Active Lifestyle

Take breaks during a sedentary workday, add a walk around the block to your morning routine, or try a new form of exercise. These activities bring great benefit in both the short and long term while helping reduce your overall stress. Including regular strength training and aerobic exercise will help to lower glucose values, as well.

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What Are The Signs & Symptoms Of Dka

The symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis usually don’t develop all at once they usually come on slowly over several hours. People who have DKA may:

feel really tired
feel really thirsty or pee way more than usual
have a dry mouth and signs of dehydration

These symptoms are caused by the high blood sugar levels that usually happen before someone develops DKA. If the person doesn’t get treatment, these signs of DKA can happen:

abdominal pain
unconsciousness