Morning everyone,
Can you help?
Discrepancies in Hba1c readings
My eight daily blood glucose monitor results give consistent readings of between between 3.5 and 8 (using the Codefree monitor which I believe marks high). My sugar app has averaged this out to 37.4 over the past 6 months or more. However my 6 monthly Hba1c review at the doctors are returning a much higher reading of 48 ? Can anybody explained the discrepancy between the two figures?
Thank you
As
@Alison Campbell said, I have a similar problem that has been on-going for around 4 years. I am not the only one on this forum by any means.
I would first say that in my case it is the finger prick testing that is the more accurate. They tally with the home HbA1c tests that I have done at the same time as the official test, and are roughly in line with the Libre that I use part time and leading up to my official HbA1c test. (after taking account of the Libre's tendency to read a bit low in my case)
If you have red blood cells that are not standard (in other words, do not fall within the average of the general population) then your HbA1c can be inaccurate - either falsely high or falsely low. This can be because of a variety of things, including iron deficiency, whether your haematocrit levels are low or high, certain types of anaemia, certain thyroid issues, or simply because your red blood cells live longer than the standard average of 120 days, or live less than this average. You can check if you have iron deficiency, high or low haematocrits, anaemia, or thyroid issues, but sadly we cannot know how long our red blood cells live. The HbA1c assumes everyone has the standard of around 120 days.
Last summer I managed to get my GP to agree with me. This was the thread I wrote at the time.
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/2-hba1cs-2-labs-1-blood-sample.154627/
My GP has now arranged for me to have my blood from the same blood draw analysed by the 2 different labs on each occasion that I have the test. It hasn't completely solved my problem, but has gone somewhere towards it.
Meanwhile, I am happy my own personal data is the most accurate.
PS. also don't forget when trying to estimate your HbA1c that it is weighted towards the last 2 or 3 weeks and isn't an average of the last 3 months.