First HbA1C in years...

[AlexMagd]

Well, I finally got back to the doctor's after spending 5 years neglecting my T2 and... it was nowhere near as bad as I feared.

Just before Christmas my annual eye exam came back with mild background retinopathy, which scared me enough to get to grips with this thing again. When I was first diagnosed I kicked diabetes' ass and brought my blood glucose down to regular levels very quickly - sadly, a combination of complacency and the pandemic saw my numbers shoot up *so* fast, and beyond my original diagnosis numbers. That absolutely shocked me, and I just ran away from managing it.

However, since getting back on it at Christmas I've brought my average blood glucose levels from 13mmol/L to 7.5mmol/L and lost a stone eating low carb. Bought a Libre again (you don't need to scan them now!) and kept a close eye on my numbers. Put together a spreadsheet for logging results and shared it with my family to keep me honest. Really, I feel better than I have in years.

The big worry was how much damage I'd done to myself in the 5 years I took the foot off the pedal - I was really scared about something irreversible, or being put on more meds with more serious side effects.

When I got the results my HbA1C was high, of course (89), but the work I've put in over the last month in maintaining good BG levels has really paid dividends in the result. I'm sure it would have been much, much higher without these few weeks of good control. The headline though is no issues with my kidneys or liver. Cholesterol was high, but I know that will come down with weight loss as it did last time round. Best of all, my doctor is pretty supportive and has allowed me to continue in this vein without putting me on additional medication (other than the obligatory push for statins, which I declined). Cannot overstate how important a good doctor is - the ones I've had in the past have not been good.

I'm just starting out on the Newcastle Diet for the next 8 weeks, to help push the weight loss and hopefully coax some more insulin sensitivity out of my poor, harassed beta cells. Feeling good about about my chances of completing it this time around with all the additional support and information available vs. the last time I tried in 2018. Hoping for a follow-up HbA1C of 50 or less in April.

One of the reasons I was so reluctant to face up to having T2 in recent years was embarrassment and shame, and anxiety about what the doctor might say. Instead, I just stuck my head in the sand. If I've learned anything through this, it's that it's often not as bad as you think. Everyone messes up from time to time managing diabetes, but it *is* possible to get back on track.

There have been a few threads here recently about being worried / scared about going to the doctor so I thought I'd post this just to point out it might not be as bad as you think.

 

[ravensmitten]

Yes, I didn't go back after getting my first hbA1c in 2016 of 50.

Although I went through some pretty intensive calorie deficit diet at the time which was also as it turns out lowish carb in nature. Over time I kinda slipped back into unhelpful ways of eating (for me.) I didn't get a hbA1c again until 2022, so six years later, among the reasons it took me so long to go back was I didn't have any follow up appointment to my initial A1c, the other was possible denial/I'll be fine I'm not _that_ diabetic mindset, not looking after myself as much as I could, and another was later on the pandemic when I started realising maybe I should be monitoring this a bit more.

I was surprised I was down to A1c of 45, which I maintained for a while, then that crept up a bit, but was keeping an eye on it, and making sure I was going to request tests regularly as I was in that limbo zone where they put no further action on my record/nothing got triggered to remind me. Although the last one I had this year was a shock to me because it had jumped up 19 points, but I know what the reasons were, and partially out of my control. this result being higher has actually motivated me (beyond my normal motivation) to do as much as I can to make sure, external circumstances aside, to get my 'high score' down.

Edit: seriously garbled run on sentences when I read back, looked fine at first

 

[AlexMagd]

Yes, I didn't go back after getting my first hbA1c in 2016 of 50.

Although I went through some pretty intensive calorie deficit diet at the time which was also as it turns out lowish carb in nature. Over time I kinda slipped back into unhelpful ways of eating (for me.) I didn't get a hbA1c again until 2022, so six years later, among the reasons it took me so long to go back was I didn't have any follow up appointment to my initial A1c, the other was possible denial/I'll be fine I'm not _that_ diabetic mindset, not looking after myself as much as I could, and another was later on the pandemic when I started realising maybe I should be monitoring this a bit more.

I was surprised I was down to A1c of 45, which I maintained for a while, then that crept up a bit, but was keeping an eye on it, and making sure I was going to request tests regularly as I was in that limbo zone where they put no further action on my record/nothing got triggered to remind me. Although the last one I had this year was a shock to me because it had jumped up 19 points, but I know what the reasons were, and partially out of my control. this result being higher has actually motivated me (beyond my normal motivation) to do as much as I can to make sure, external circumstances aside, to get my 'high score' down.

Edit: seriously garbled run on sentences when I read back, looked fine at first

I also had some bad follow-up (i.e. very little), but I do blame myself for the last 5 years. I also had a doctor, when mine started to creep up, give me the absolutely terrible advice of "I'm not too worried - it's taken many years to get to this point, so it'll take a long time to get high again". Cue another HbA1C massively higher only a little while later!

I guess the flipside of it being easier than people think to bring HbA1C numbers down, is that it's easy for them to go up quickly again too.

 

[ravensmitten]

Yeah, sounds like it’s a licence to say ahh it’s not toooo bad yourself, must be true if the doctor said it!

I was given totally different advice depending on who I spoke to and some helpful and some not so helpful, which was confusing enough. Who is right here if you are suggesting diametrically opposed ideas. Is this one a little bit right and the other one right too or are they both wrong. Or one right and the other one wrong?!

Took a while to figure out what the actual craic was. And that really there’s a few things I can do if I own them.

This place is a great help.