HB1AC

Hi spamup,
The HBA1C test shows the average amount of blood sugar you have had over a period of 90 days. Blood sugar itself is created from the carbohydrates that you eat. These include sugar, starchy foods, fruit and dairy foods. If your HBA1C is showing an increase then this shows that what you thought was a healthy diet is probably not healthy at all.

If you could you give us some idea of the sort of food that you typically eat in the course of a day then we should be able to give you some guidelines as to lower carb alternatives that will bring your blood sugars back down again.

It would also be interesting to know what dietary advice you were given by your doctor, diabetes nurse or dietitian.

Spamup, try to cut down on the amount of potatoes and fruit you're eating, that should make a big difference to your blood sugar levels.

Also, have a look at this site which will help you choose more diabetes friendly foods...

http://www.glycaemicindex.com/

That is an unwise diet for a diabetic, even though it may be in line with DUK & NHS advice.

We can't digest carbohydrates, so cut right down on the indicated items in your diet.

My breakfast is typically toast with flora light only one slice, and some OJ or AJ and on the odd days a bowl of either cornflakes or shreddies

At lunch I eat a sandwich or a salad. (usually cheese, ham, tuna - typical sandwich meats)

dinner time meat, vegetables, potatoes ( once a week ill have a pastry pie or pasta, shepherds pie and the rest of the week it will be a meat cut)

I do eat fruit inbetween and a few biscuits during the day - Ill have a couple of pkts of potatoe crisps a week (low fat ones) and once a week I will indulge in a cream bun with the kids

I drink on average 4 cups of tea a day and up to 6 coffees (with one sugar in tea non in coffee)

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The SILENT KILLER is actually a CEREAL KILLER. Many on this forum have rejected the DUK diet advice as dangerous & found substantial health improvement.

I agree on the less carbs policy.Are you on medication, or trying to keep HbA1c down on a high carb diet, without home testing? this is what they tell you to do and it's IMPOSSIBLE. There are basically 2 ways to keep BG and hence HbA1c down in diabetes.
1 Don't worry about what you eat and take loads of BG lowering medication
2 Don't eat the stuff that turns to glucose in your blood. i.e. sugars and starches.
The third possiblity of "exercise it off" is VERY difficult to achieve. Not only because it needs EXtreme exercise to get rid of any significant quantity of Glucose, but also because of a perverse tendency for BG to go up even higher if you start to exercise with a high BG.
I personally find the "don't eat the stuff " simplest and most logical
I do slip off the wagon sometimes, give in to temptation and take the consequences.
It absoluely doesn't make sense to have people eating loads of carbs and taking shedloads of medication, when Not eating the stuff is just as effective. You get used to it quite quickly.
the carbs you describe as 1 days meals, is more than I would eat in a week and possibly a month.

Visited dn today hb1ac was 6.6 non fasting. Bg today was 6.8 90 minutes after breakfast. She refused to supply me with a testing kit. When I challenged her as to why not she said my levels are excellent as I am not medicating she still feels no need and enough people are testing and if my levels changed at all I would soon be supplied with a kit...she then took my bp and it was back up to 160/92 seeing as it was 120/75 yesterday I am assuming that it was her fault for giving me such an answer and it looks like I will be buying my own kit asap.

Not a happy bunny

Dear Spamup. Are you testing yourself?
I was on Gliclazide as well as Metformin until last year, when having discovered that it was almost certainly the cause of my uncontrolable weight, I ditched it in favour of a low carb diet. I'll take the Metformin. It is supposed to help you lose weight. I have stopped losing now. probably because I'm not as careful as I was to begin with. I have lost 2 1/2 stones though. If you go low carb and continue with the Gliclazide, You'll start to have hypos. If you reduce the carbs and continue with the G you might try cutting the dose in half.

Candyrel
Don't worry about the BP - same thing happens to me. Always about 160/90 when with the nurse - but usually less than 130/80 when I test it myself. To convince the nurse I did not need BP medication I resorted to buying a decent BP monitor (BHF approved) kept a log to show the nurse and I took the BP with me to compare with the Nurse's BP meter to show my readings were accurate. By the way the nurse is excellent - just always expecting the worst when I visit which sends my BP too high.
Regards
Alan

My bp is always lovely and low even when I was 9 months pregnant it was 130/80 my father was so jealous. Everytime I visit her she says something that sends me rocketing up.

I'm confused....

If we can't we can't digest carbohydrates, as IanD says, how come eating carbohydrate causes our BG levels to rise?

candyrel said:

Visited dn today hb1ac was 6.6 non fasting. Bg today was 6.8 90 minutes after breakfast. She refused to supply me with a testing kit. When I challenged her as to why not she said my levels are excellent as I am not medicating she still feels no need and enough people are testing and if my levels changed at all I would soon be supplied with a kit...she then took my bp and it was back up to 160/92 seeing as it was 120/75 yesterday I am assuming that it was her fault for giving me such an answer and it looks like I will be buying my own kit asap.

Not a happy bunny

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Your levels are NOT excellent, they're just better than the average diabetic

<sigh>

When I worked in industry I used to have managers like that, spend pounds in order to save pennies. Now industry no longer exists they've all gone to work for the NHS.