Blood Glucose Curve Test

Open Office Calc

produces some nice charts

Originally posted Monday, 01 June 2009; 12:11

Extras added to this chart, using Paint Shop Pro 9

I drew a vertical reddish line to represent the time of feeding in the morning, and another, blue line, to represent the time of giving insulin. I took the 7:00 reading right before giving insulin.

Also, I added two green, semi-transparent rectangles, each of which represents a walk we took. Notice the drops in blood glucose that occur during walks. It's very useful to understand that exercise can drop BG levels by a lot!

Watching for sharp drops in blood glucose levels

When blood glucose levels fall very sharply - very far, or or very fast,we human DogParents need to watch to make sure they don't drop TOO far, or that they begin to rise again, and when they do rise again, that they shouldn't rise to very high levels. When drops and subsequent rises are too steep, or too fast, likely the animal is going into a rebound situation, where the liver is releasing glucose into the bloodstream, in the body's attempt to save itsself from crashing.

The drop in glucose during the morning here is one thing; it's a fairly big drop, but climbs again before long. The afternoon drop is more dramatic; one might ask why, but what is going on here, likely, is that the insulin is working at its hardest, about eight hours after injection, and that, combined with even light exercise, causes a very steep drop. However, later, the values are rising again, but not at a very fast rate.

This pattern is very typical of Kumbi, whose nadir (lowest BG level of the day) typically occurs around three in the afternoon, as you can see in the chart that shows four of his curves plotted together.

So, when the insulin is peaking at the same time the animal is nearing its nadir, one has to watch with particular care. Which I do, with Kumbi! It's best not to exercise the animal when approaching the nadir; however, soemtimes our scheduling goes awry, and I can prevent problems by giving Kumbi a tiny snack, if we're walking sometime around three in the afternoon because of other circumstances.

The entire series is running somewhat higher than I liek to see - Kumbi had been drinking quite a lot more water in the last couple of days before I did this corve. however, his drinking is now returning to normal. Sometiems either extra stresses in a dog's life, or "getting into something he shouldn't" raises levels like that.

Tracking Kumbi's charts

To make it easier to follow progress in a dog featured here, I am adding a kind of tracking list, which merely links to other charts for the same dog.

1. Kumbi 1
2. Kumbi 2
3. Kumbi 3

We include uncharted data in the data table

Data that aren't on the chart include notes on what food, what insulin, is being given, as well as notes on weather, and a few other items..

This chart has a slight distortion

I wanted to know by how much Kumbi's blood glucose drops when we go walking, so we left for our morning walk right after the 9 a.m. reading, and then I took an extra reading when we returned from the walk; that's the one with the time of 09:46.

However, the graphing done by Open Office Calc doesn't scale the readings properly. That's probably only because I don't know how to make it do so!

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