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Doctors Blood tests - any use ?

Brodiebear

Brodiebear

Well-Known Member
Messages
45
Location
Telford
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Diabeties
I had a blood test week last Monday and went for the results today, my blood glucose has gone up – 70HbA1c ( I think), last time it was 49, so a bit of a jump, however the previous two days at work prior to my blood test had been hectic and I knew I would have to work all weekend, so stress levels were up. My question is could this have bumped up the glucose readings, another reason I ask is that a week ago I had a hyperglycaemic episode (1st ever one), my meter showed my bloods at 13.5, tested an hour later and they were down to 8.8 and when I got to the doctors and they checked me it was 7.3, so if it can change that much in less than 4 hours how accurate can a fasting blood test be and should it be used for diagnosing medication?

Open to the floor ............................
 
There are two main regular blood tests for diabetics - the finger prick test that you do yourself and the HbA1c, as you've found. The finger prick just measures the amount of glucose in that droplet of blood at that moment. If you take it again from another finger or a little while later, it will likely give a slightly different result as it perpetually changes with what you eat, activity, stress etc.

The HbA1c test is rather different as it measures the glucose attached to red blood cells. As red blood cells live for anything up to 6 months, a sample of venous blood will include cells of a multitude of ages. So testing the glucose on all of those, gives an average reading for the life of those combined cells. So some cells will be brand new and show your blood glucose recently, old cells will reflect what it was like a few weeks ago. So the HbA1c shows an average for something like the past three months or so. They're generally only done routinely every six months - there's not much to be gained by doing them too frequently.

So one is immediately responsive to your food etc. - hence you got different readings over a few hours, that's perfectly predictable. The HbA1c shows the general trend of the last few weeks - so is the one the doc would use to prescribe from - probably in conjunction with your own readings, if you take them, which might show daily trends and patterns and would determine when you take your meds and the finer details like that.

So both types of tests have great value and you'd use them both for making decisions, changing meds, eating habits etc.
 
Many thanks, makes perfect sense now its been explained.

Suppose thats why i am not a doctor !!!! lol
 
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