26 Comments
How often do you check for ketones when your blood glucose levels are above 250 mg/dL?
You must be logged in to post a comment.
© 2023 T1D Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
I check for ketones when I am sick.
I have not tested for ketones since blood test meters first became available in the early 80s.
I am very rarely above 250 and don’t stay there for long, so don’t see the need to test.
I hate going high but my experience is sane as yours.
Whike hospitalized in August I was running bg consistently in mid 200s over 2.5 days due to poor method of bg control by hospitalist. Yet anion gap test did not show ketoacidosis.
Never have been in a situation where I was unable to give enough medicine or do an activity that I was unable to lower glucose numbers into the 100s
It depends on what if/what my other symptom’s are.
I have never been sure of what I was doing or of the accuracy of the result the couple of times I did do it. And none of my doctors have ever cared.
My BG is never above 250. I chose the NA response.
In my 31 years with T1D, I have never checked for ketones. I’ve been over 250 many times but rarely for an extended period of time. Ketone checking just wasn’t something any of my doctors pushed on me.
BGs go up and down on a daily basis depending on variable circumstances. A BG of 250 mg/dl or above is usually temporary. If at 250 > for a sustained period of time, then I will check. However, it has been several years since I last tested for ketones.
Never have +250 bg, taking action preemptively pays off.
If my BG goes over 250, I am either sick or having a pump-related problem and will test for ketones then. This spring I had a bad GI bug and got dehydrated (despite drinking lots of fluids, go figure) and saw rising ketones. I had to go to the ER for fluids.
Only if I am sick wd I ck for ketones
My endocrinologist told me not to.
I have only tested for ketones a handful of times over my 26 yrs with T1D and not for over a decade. Having a 250 mg/dl is not uncommon for me, but it’s usually related to inadequate (or forgotten) meal bolus. If a high persists, I change my infusion site. I can tell when I’m spilling ketones because I get very nauseous. For me it’s always due to not getting insulin. Usually because a pump site became disconnected without me realizing. Once in my rush to get the kids to school and myself to work for a big meeting, I forgot to re-attach my pump post shower. 🤦♀️
I don’t have any way to check for Keynes. Insurance 25 years ago used to pay for Ketosticks to test but they don’t anymore. Even if I had Ketosticks I wouldn’t check unless I was above 350 for at least 4 hours which has never happened.
I chose rarely. My BG is above 250 for a short amount of time almost every time I eat carbs. It doesn’t stay for long and comes down quickly on its own or crashing if I over correct, as I am highly sensitive to insulin.
I have checked for ketones when my BG is above 200 and doesn’t respond to insulin normally. This has happened possibly ten times max.
I rarely get that high. If it happens, it’s for a short time since I’d be taking measures to bring it down.
IF(!) it was staying above that level for days, then maybe… But, luckily, that just doesn’t happen. The only time my BG is ever that high is when I may have forgotten to bolus (and correct immediately), or I have indulged in something sweet, creating a swell upward of my BG, and I continue monitoring, to ensure it comes back down.
Like most of the others who’ve commented, I seldom get high bg levels, so I rarely test. If I did, it would be with expired ketostix. If positive I’d test again with new strips ASAP within 24 hours, if not immediately. (I can walk to a 24-hour pharmacy not covered by my insurance.) BUT…BUT…BUT I only get tested for albumin once per year as my health insurance requires. And I’ve had T1D for so long, I probably could wisely choose to test for urine ketones every couple of months, just to be extra safe. I know a T2D who is now on dialysis. The sooner we can grow transplant kidneys from genetically modified pigs or our own stem cells, the better. Organ transplant donors are way too few.
I keep my BG below 200 mostly. On occasion I pop up above but immediately correct with bolus to bring BG down quickly. I have never tested for ketones in the almost 30 years with diabetes. A doctor has never recommended me to do so nor given me the means.
I’ve never checked for ketones in 29 years with T1D. I asked my endo about it a year or two ago and she advised that I don’t need to test. She said that the test sticks used to be individually wrapped but no longer come that way so they expire too quickly for it to make sense to have them on hand. She said if I had ketones that were concerning I would feel it or other things anyway and would already be seeking care.
I never check for ketones with sticks. They expire before I use them up. I rely on symptoms. If I am thirsty and urinating a lot and/or above 200 for over 2 hours, I drink a sugar-free drink mix with lots of potassium to eliminate chest pains and manually inject 2 units and then wait 30 mins.
If I get no response from a correcting dose of insulin – I test. 95% of the time I only have ‘trace’ amounts of ketones. If they get above ‘small’, I take action by changing my pump and using a new vial of insulin to load it. I learned the hard way years ago when I had insulin go bad on me.
Never been prescribed ketone strips I didn’t know