No longer have to take insulin

[gillytee31]

I saw my diabetic nurse yesterday for my annual review and apparently my HbA1c has gone down to 28 and I have to stop taking insulin. I stopped taking steroids for uveitis last December, and have lost over 2 stone in weight. Also because my husband was seriously ill from July, and died October 18th, I have eaten less. Presumably this would also explain the loss of weight. What I do not understand is why my HbA1c has gone down such a lot when my blood sugars when I take them 4 times each day have not changed at all. It is usually between 4 and 7 when I wake up, 5-8 before my evening meal and up to 12 before I go to bed depending on what I have eaten for my evening meal. Shouldn't there be some similarity between HbA1c and finger prick testing?

 

[Squire Fulwood]

Not as much as you might think. The Hba1c is an average of blood sugar levels over a couple of months. To get a similar average with finger pricking you would have read very often over the same period. In practise we tend to take finger prick tests when we expect to be a little high and an average should include all the lows in order to be accurate. Personally I would take the Hba1c as the more reliable.