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HBA1C results back today, looking good but wanted to check

N

nomorepies

Active Member
Messages
26
Location
NW UK
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I was diagnosed T2 in January with an HBA1C of 76. Diabetes support services seem to have stopped in my area during Covid, so I cracked on with my diet and meter etc at home and finally got a follow up test last week after asking for one. Phoned the surgery for the results today and it was 33.

Obviously I'm absolutely delighted and hopefully they'll be in touch for a proper consultation, but I wanted to check here...is this as good as it sounds? Have I won?

Edit - I've been on Metformin as well. More edit - I know that remission is defined more or less as <48 consistently without medication, so I'll have to see if that holds true for me. But on a first reading, is this as good as it sounds?
 
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An amazing result. I'm sure they'll be suggesting you come off Metformin, and keep doing what you're doing.
 
ert said:
An amazing result. I'm sure they'll be suggesting you come off Metformin, and keep doing what you're doing.
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I'm assuming so. I'd be interested to hear what people's experiences are of coming off metformin and how it affects HBA1C - from what I read in trials it only lowers it by about 1% compared to placebo so I'm really hoping that my result is due to diet rather than medication.
 
AS the others have said, you've restored your sugar levels to normal. Just be aware that that does not mean that you can go back to eating "normal" levels of carbs. Clearly your body can process the amount you're eating now, and you can investigate with a meter to see what the limits of that tolerance are, but your body just can't cope with carbs well, so the traditional (for the last 50 years) high carb western diet is never going to suit you.

But congratulations on your impressive success.
 

Wow that is great news and congratulations. Can I ask what sort of diet you followed and how often did you check your blood sugar levels please? Thanks
 
Thanks - yeah, I've got no desire to go back to the way I was eating and drinking. This has been a real shock to me and a very humbling one.
 
Very well done for an excellent first result!

I haven't gone that low but after consistently keeping my HbA1c at the low end of pre-diabetic, my GP suggested I came off metformin, and doing so has made no difference to my results. Generally now for me the only things that result in a higher HbA1c are periods of stress, pain, illness, but if I also increase my carb intake again then this will also have an impact. Keeping levels low and stable for most of us tends to be a long term effort - to rephrase an old proverb - one great HbA1c does not remission make... so carry on with the good work.
 
Fantabulous result.... you should be really happy with that. I hope your diabetes team applauds your results also.
 
Nin's said:
Wow that is great news and congratulations. Can I ask what sort of diet you followed and how often did you check your blood sugar levels please? Thanks
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Thanks!

Pre-diagnosis in mid-January 2020:
  • eating mostly vegetarian with a bit of seafood. My wife eats wholefood plant based so most of the home meals were very low in processed foods and a lot of beans and pulses
  • quite a bit of pasta, rice, bread etc
  • graze freely from the biscuit tin, eat sweets in the car, buy sandwiches etc in work, snacked late in the evening. I also drank at a pretty steady pace, having a couple of glasses of wine or spirits every night pretty much.
  • I was 15 stone 4 lbs (97.1 kg) at the end of December.

Post-diagnosis:
  • went straight onto 16/8 intermittent fasting (more like 17/7 most days)
  • cut out booze completely
  • No refined sugar
  • No fruit for the first 3 months
  • no pasta, rice or similar. I started having wholemeal bread more after about 4 months, maybe 3 times a week or so
  • Vegan for the first 3 months or so, not sure why but it just felt right.
  • Reasonably high fat - nuts, peanut butter, avocado. I wasn't going for high fat/low carb as such but I wasn't avoiding fats either.
  • Bit lax on exercise. Between mind-Jan and mid-March I was really making an effort to get in 10000 steps a day and not use the lifts in work, which was helping. Since lockdown I've walked the dog in the woods every day for about 45 minutes. I'm currently on week 7 of Couch to 5K and wish I'd started months ago.
  • For the last couple of months I have been eating fruit in moderation, the odd pack of baked crisps (Hula Hoops or similar). A tiny bit of booze but haven't really got much interest in it any more. No refined sugar except a slice of cake on my kids' birthdays.
  • Testing...I've only really been testing at about 11am, so still in a fasted state. My average has gone from 7.8 in the first 90 days to 5.8 in the last 90 days. I haven't been very good at testing, I was kind of relying on large-scale dietary change and seeing how my HBA1C results were.
For the first 3 months I was about 98% clean. I had one cheat meal (fish, chips, curry sauce, mushy peas - best I've ever had ) and one slice of birthday cake. Since then I'll have an occasional lazy meal like a white tortilla quesadilla with tuna, mayo and cheese, or a takeaway pizza at celebrations. I won't go for the serving sizes I used to have, and I'll stop when I've had enough.

Edit - current weight is 11 stone 11lbs (74.8Kkg). That's in a healthy BMI for my height (5'11) but I could still lose another 10lbs for aesthetic reasons. I've been plateaued at 11 11 for a few weeks.

Nin's said:
Wow that is great news and congratulations. Can I ask what sort of diet you followed and how often did you check your blood sugar levels please? Thanks
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That's really interesting, thanks - I'm curious to see how it goes with me. Point taken about the long-term effort! I won't be going back to my old ways.
 
Tophat1900 said:
Fantabulous result.... you should be really happy with that. I hope your diabetes team applauds your results also.
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I have a diabetes team??? I've been disappointed by the support, to be honest. I had to beg for a blood test in January, despite being pre-diabetic a few years ago. Saw my GP who gave me the results in mid January, but there's been no appointment about eyes or feet or any of that. My GP said I could go to a group session if I wanted to where they'd discuss diet etc but that it was probably more for people who don't know what they should be eating, rather than people like me who know but just ate badly anyway. I phoned in about May to ask if any services were being provided and got a callback from the diabetes nurse - she was delighted with my weight loss and home testing results, and said to carry on. I phoned again the other week to ask for an HBA1C test and had to phone again yesterday to get the results. I spoke to the receptionist.

I know Covid has had a massive impact on health provision and I'm sympathetic to that, but a lot of this stuff should have been in place from January.
 
New member here and I had to reply to this thread as it was like reading my own story, I would graze all day on sugary treats and didn't really look after myself.

I saw the diabetic nurse and told her my plan and she said it won't work as its too much weight to lose and she had never heard of this approach to diabetes but I can try and do I want to join a support group. Its seems to me they just want put you on the medication and move on to the next newly diagnosed patient.

Anyway

Diagnosed Jan 6th a1c 77 weight 96kg

April a1c 37 weight 76kg Dr advised to half the metformin dose then I stopped completely May 1
August a1c 27 weight 71kg weight been stable for 2 months now and eat around 2000 calories a day some days a lot less.

Test blood daily, never eat past 6pm and have breakfast around 10-12am can be later but will always have a coffee and MCT oil when I wake at around 5am and every 3 months I have been doing a 48hr fast will carry with this

I always stick to 30g carbs or less per day and walk 4-6 miles daily and feel pretty good. Come off all medication I was on and the most notable was the lansoprazole which I had been taking for 25yrs or more.

I know I cant go back to my old ways and I cant see me doing so, ive not had any bread, potatoes, rice, pasta since diagnosis its been a huge wake up call to make me realise about the damage such a high amount of carbs were doing to me.
 
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Yeah, you've been fighting a battle there for sure. Still, you've done incredibly well and really taken control of your health.
 
Yes, we all have (in the UK) however mostly in order to get/stay in remission we have to go Low Carb and fight against our Diabetes team, since current prevailing medical opinion is that we should still eat lots of whole grain carbs (and avoid fat).So most of us achieve success despite the best efforts of our Diabetes teams!
 
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