HBAIC results

Can I ask,Pauline ,what was your Hba1c before this one? Was it higher or lower? If it was higher then you are going in the right direction,maybe not as fast as you want but still going down.

Hi Pauline,
I posted an almost identical message on here last week, so I know exactly how you feel. My previous reading was in the 8's and last week mine was 7.4. I'd hoped for it to be much lower with all my effort on lowering carbs etc. but it might help you to read Dennis's reply to my posting. I think it's on the latter pages of my original "gutted" thread.

remember that HbA1c depends on the rate of turnover of red corpuscles. If yours have the average life of 100 days, your Hb A1c will reflect your average BG in that last 100 days, Also there's a tendency for the most recent BGs to have a slightly stronger influence on your numbers. Diabetic geek will probably explain much better than me.
If your corpuscles live on average more than 100 days, your result will be affected

I wrote a somewhat detailed description of HbA1c in an old thread, but in a nutshell it provides quite a good estimate of your average BG over the previous three months (to the extent that you can calculate what this average will have been).

If it is not as low as you expected there are a number of possible reasons. First of all the three month period is very rough - it might be a bit more or less. If your BG is coming down, then the average could well still be influenced by the high levels throughout this period. Another possibility is that your day to day monitoring might not be picking up your highest BG levels. Some types of foods can raise BG for hours after a meal - and if meals are having a knock-on effect then your average could be rising significantly throughout the day, even if your morning figure is quite low and this could give you a higher average over all. You could try monitoring rather more throughout the day for a few days to see if this seems to be the case. Yet another possibility is what happens at night? Some people's BG rises during their sleep, if their liver goes into "starvation mode" and starts releasing stored energy as glucose. This is the main root cause of the "dawn effect" and it might be worth looking in to. Some people can prevent this quite successfully by eating a high protein snack shortly before going to bed.

However, although this is a bit disappointing the most important thing is that it moving in the right direction. Changes don't necessarily happen overnight - so, keep up the new diet and hopefully your next test will be a major improvement. If it isn't, and if it seems to have stalled at a figure of over 7% then you will need to discuss this with your doctor, as you may well need some changes to your medication.

I had my six month blood test yesterday.

My BS at 6:30 was 5.7, & several glasses of water later, at 10:00 the BS had risen to 6.8.

I wonder, will my fasting reading from the blood test also be 6.8?

I get the results nest Friday.

If it's an Hba1c Ian then it is not a fasting test.Hba1c is a percentage over 90 days so it will be different to your fasting sugars.

sugarless sue said:

If it's an Hba1c Ian then it is not a fasting test. Hba1c is a percentage over 90 days so it will be different to your fasting sugars.

Click to expand...

It was a fasting test.
The last blood test printout reports (January):
HbA1c - HI - 6.8 (desired <5.9)
Plasma fasting glucose - HI - 6.3 (2.5-6.1)

Let us know if it is 6.8 Ian.Interested to know.

Interesting ..... but not as interesting as I hoped.
After 3 months on reduced carb & a massive reduction in overnight fasting glucose from 6.7 to 5.3, my HbA1c has gone up, but everything else is in the right direction.
The only medication is 2x500 metformin. No bp medication. I'm type 2 for 8 years.

My motivation for reducing BS is complications - beginning of retinopathy & muscle pain - I was crippled with pain 4 months ago & I feared my active life was over. Now that pain is almost gone.

..................Jan 08...Aug 08...recommended
HbA1c...........6.8.......6.9........<6.0
plasma gluc....6.3.......6.1.......<6.1
total chol.......5.4.......4.3.......<5.2
hdl...............1.4........1.6.......>0.9
ldl................3.1........2.5.......<3.4
chol/hdl........3.8........2.8........<4.9
triglyc...........2.0........0.7........<2.2
wt................13 st......12 st 2 lb
....................82.6 kg...76.3 kg
height 5'8" (173 cm)
bp................135/75....125/73...<140/80
bmi...............27.6.......25.5......<25

Lots of benefits from reduced carb, but why the increase in HbA1c? Has my fat & chol been converted into Hb blood sugar to maintain the level? Has Murphy been active? Dr could not suggest a reason, but approved the benefits to general health. My chol has never been below 5 except when I took simvastatin for a few months.

Next blood test in 3 months.

I came away with a prescription for 100 each of 2 sorts of test strips.