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HBa 1c and blood sugar

M

metalmagpie

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I know this is really stupid but I can't see any relationship between the blood sugar levels I read on my own monitor and the HBA1c readings that appear in my regular tests and which the doctor relies on.
Is 7.5 to 10.5 a reasonable range (I am 69 years old)?
Also how long does "after meal" last when recording readings. If it means 2hours when does "before meal" start: I thought diabetics were supposed to eat little and often!
 
I'm a newbie here so I could be wrong on this but my understanding is:

You need to know BOTH your HbA1c and your self-tested BG.
HbA1c is a sort of average result over 2-3 months - it's not directly comparable to your actual BG at any particular time. It's not actually a measure of glucose, it's a measure of a different thing that is just an indicator of glucose control over time.
Your BG (whether self or lab tested) is your glucose level at that time - it's a spot test.

I'm not sure if the range you quoted is your BG levels, but let's say it is. You need to find out what range you should be working towards getting to. For me this is 4-8. My fasting BG in the morning is usually about 5.9, which i'm really happy with. Lately the highest I've been getting to at night is about 8-9, which is again ok. For me, seeing 10.5 would tell me I needed to tweak things a bit. When first diagnosed I was routinely up around 11-13 at night (fasting BG was about 7).

An HbA1c target range is usually a bit lower than a target BG range (remember they are not really equivalent measures). Mine is 5-7, and I'm on 6.3, so perfectly happy. I could opt for tight control eg 5-6 (I dunno) but I'm just not going there at the moment. Everyone is different and ultimately it's your choice what ranges you want to aim for.

I'm not fussy about the timing of my BG testing, but I would see "before meal" and meaning just before eating, and "after meal" as 2 hours later? Eating little and often means eating every 2-3 hours (to me). It shouldn't be necessary to eat more often than that, unless it's part of the management approach you want to take. I struggle to remember to eat more often than 4-5 hourly - it's diabetes and metformin that reminds me to eat every 3 hours or so, lol. I have found myself out somewhere with no food and suddenly feeling weak or nauseated too many times to forget to eat nowadays.

I hope that helps - if I've gotten something wrong we'll be sure to find out!
 
I can't see any relationship between the blood sugar levels I read on my own monitor and the HBA1c readings that appear in my regular tests and which the doctor relies on.
Click to expand...

As has been already said, The numbers of your HbA1c are not measuring the same thing as your meter.
To muddy the water, HbA1c is now expressed using a different system, but I'd guess your referring to the old system that you'll see posters record in their posts or at the end of their posts.

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/hba1c-to-bloo ... erter.html

provides you with a converter, where HbA1c/blood sugar is as follows :

5/5.6 6/7.6 7/9.6 8/11.6

Is this the discrepancy you mean ?

Geoff
 
Hi. Yes, little and often helps to reduce spikes at the carb intake at any meal will be less. I guess for small meals the 2 hour figure might be reduced as any spike will be less and shorter-lived. Taken to extreme if you ate almost continuously and in very small amounts you would have reasonable glucose levels whenever you tested but you wouldn't have much of a life!
 
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