What is normal blood sugar range for a type 2 diabetic?
My dad has type 2 diabetes, and recently had open heart surgery, he was on 2 different pills before the surgery to manage his diabetes, but they weren’t working. After the surgery his dr put him on insulin along with the pills. His dr started lowering his doses of insulin because his sugar levels were running way to low (in the 50′s overnight). The last 2 days he hasn’t had any insulin, the highest number he’s had has been 244 (after eating), but drops within an hour. My question is since he just stopped taking the insulin, how high should his blood sugar get before we start worrying about it?

Normal blood sugar ranges are the same for everyone, diabetic or not. The whole point of treating diabetics is to maintain their blood sugar at the normal levels.
Ideally here are the goals –
before eating in the morning 80-120
2 hours after a meal 160 or less
At bedtime 100-140
Everyone’s blood sugar can fluctuate, you want to watch out for periods of constant highs levels, or if it spikes & drops out a lot! Then your medication is not working for you & your dr needs to re-evaluate & modify it.
Surgery is major trauma to the body and shocks it into showing diabetic on normal people too.
Since your dad’s pills weren’t working well before , yes I understand the doctor putting him on a rather high dosage of insulin for a few days then backing it back down rather than titrating it up like with normal diabetics. That was to bring him down to near normal soonest so he can mend after the heart surgery.
Let the doctor tell you what the number should be. Each doctor has their own ideas of what our bods should be doing.
I would be very worried about my glucose at any point over 199 within 90 minutes to 2 hours after eating. In fact I don’t want it jumping even that high. I try hard to keep it around 150 post prandial 2 hour mark. But then, I haven’t had any surgery or trauma to my bod so I am a “normal diabetic”.
anything over 180 is too high. It starts to do damage if it remains over 180. Fasting sugars should be under 120 but not lower than 75. over all it should always stay under 180. Although, the ADA is changing it to under 140.
I would worry if after meal test were over 120 after 2 hours or 140 after 1 hour.
I hope that your dad heart surgery went well, and he can start to exercise. This is a big key to controling blood sugars. Along with a low glycemic index diet http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm
And of course meds.
Normal Fasting Blood Sugar
A normal fasting blood sugar (which is also the blood sugar a normal person will see right before a meal) is:
83 mg/dl (4.6 mmol/L) or less.
Many normal people have fasting blood sugars in the mid and high 70 mg/dl (3.9 mmol/L) range.
Though most doctors will tell you any fasting blood sugar under 100 mg/dl (5.6 mmol/L) is “normal”, there are several studies that suggest that testing with a fasting blood sugar in the mid 90 mg/dl (5 mmol/L) range often predicts diabetes that is diagnosed a decade later.
Post-Meal Blood Sugar (Postprandial)
Independent of what they eat, the blood sugar of a truly normal person is:
Under 120 mg/dl (6.6 mmol/L) one or two hours after a meal.
Most normal people are under 100 mg/dl (5.5 mmol/L) two hours after eating.
So as soon as he can start to exercise and do a low carb diet he should get into normal range.
Also go to this website . It (blood sugar 101). A great source of info;;http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/16422495.php
Tin
When my spouse was diagnosed with diabetes, we didn’t know how we were going to pay for everything. Fortunately, we were able to get a free blood glucose meter at http://ow.ly/1ruPo. Hopefully this helps out other people that are in the same situation as us.