• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

High Blood Sugar reading- bit worried

D

damianjmcgrath

Newbie
Messages
3
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
Hello,

Apologies if this is the wrong place but I just wanted some advice or thoughts from people.

I've had a few unprompted health checks over the last 18 months - I went to BUPA for a wellness check just because I thought it would be good having a general check, and I had one of those Tesco health checks at their pharmacy as it was free on that day.

The BUPA one was in March 2014 and the Tesco one was in July. Both checks involved a blood sugar check and both were from a position of 12 hour fasting. The results both times were 5.5. Both places said there's nothing to worry about as long as it's under 6.1.

Recently, I had to go to a Lloyds Pharmacy as part of health insurance I took out. The insurers told me to only fast for 2 hours so I did and the result of the blood sugar was 7.8. The pharmacy thought the result wasn't true because the fasting wasn't long enough so they invited me back in 4 weeks time.

The next time, I fasted for 12 hours and got a result of 5.5, which was what I normally was based on previous results. However, Lloyds said that their threshold wasn't 6.1, they wanted me to be under 5 so they invited me back 3 weeks later for another check.

That check happened today. I fasted for 14 hours this time, and the result came back at 7.3! I've no idea what happened. The pharmacy woman was surprised - so much so that she thought the machine was broken and retook the test from a different finger and that result was 6.9.

They seem concerned by that and they've asked me to go back in three days for one more test before they refer me to the GP.

I'm a little worried about these results. With the exception of the non fasting result, I've been consistently 5.5 so this sudden shoot up by 1.8 in three weeks is worrying.

I don't feel ill, haven't got a virus as far as I know, I'm not particularly thirsty, I'm putting on weight rather than losing it, I'm not urinating more frequently, but I have noticed getting really tired after eating my evening meal. This could be related or it could be because I've recently returned to working all day after having 2 weeks off over Christmas.

What do people think? Should I be worried? What symptoms should I be on the lookout for that would indicate a problem?

Thanks in advance.
 
Possibly your liver could have dumped glucose after such a long fast but I am not medically qualified so I suggest you check with your GP
CAROL
 
I would make an appointment with your G.P. and he may order an HBA1c so that he can see what your average blood sugars are rather than relying on a snapshot finger prick test. Depending on the results he will be able to give you advice.
The weight gain and tiredness could be a symptom of Type2 or pre-diabetes.
If you get a diagnosis then come back and we will help you get your blood sugars under control.
Whilst people here can make suggestions, non of us are qualified.
 
Hi. None of those numbers look to bad but could possibly be pre-diabetic so do see the GP. Fasting tests can be very unreliable due to the liver-dump effect. A phlebotomist once told me to not go longer than 10-12 hours becuase of that so your 14 hours was probably too long? If Lloyds are looking for a level below 5 then I think they are wrong; some people may be but a lot will be over that. The 2 hour test after a meal is a fairly good indicator but it does depend on the meal content. The HBa1C is the best test but GPs won't normally do it until 3 months after some sort of diagnosis
 
I agree with the others. Make an appointment to see your GP and ask for an HbA1c blood test. This will show your average blood sugars over the previous 2 to 3 months and is a more reliable indicator of diabetes than snap shot finger prick tests. Don't worry about it.
 
Thanks guys for all your replies. I phoned the GP and spoke to the receptionist about the problems and she booked me in to see the doctor in 2 days time. She couldn't arrange any sort of test without me seeing the doctor first, so I assume I'll be seeing him and then he'll arrange the test for a week or two after.

I didn't know anything about the liver dump effect - Lloyds didn't mention it either. They worried me slightly with their reaction to the scores.

I know I posted on a diabetic forum and there's probably people with far worse scores so perhaps my post seems out of place but I wanted some reassurance from real people that I wasn't going to have a hyperglycemic attack in a minute! I'm a little ignorant about blood sugar levels.

I'll update in here with what the doctor says on Friday in case there's other people with similar scores and similar concerns.
 
Just a quick update to this topic, if anyone's interested.

After the weird 7.3 reading after 12-hr fasting, I visited the doctor who arranged a 12-hr fasting HBAC1 test, or whatever it's called. Apparently, this is a test where it returns the average blood glucose from the last 3 months. My reading came back as 32, or using a converter, that came back as 5.5 mmol/l.

Screenshot_2015_01_19_13_42_54.png


The doctor said these results were absolutely normal and they're not concerned at all, so no further tests are needed, and they don't need to give me any specific diet/exercise/management advice.

Obviously, thats good news for me, but it makes me laugh, as the result of 5.5 is pretty much exactly what my previous tests had been (see my first post), and this whole situation of me worrying and going to the doctors was caused by Lloyds Pharmacy telling me that anything above 5.0 was bad. They are the only pharmacy with that threshold - everyone else seems to be 6.1!

Then again, I've seen people on this forum who have been diagnosed and their test results are around 5.1, or so. Should I be concerned by a reading of 5.5?
 
5.5 is a reading many on here dream of. When it's 12+ you can start to worry. Mine was 28 when diagnosed (it's like being on drugs).

Congrats and stop worrying. Have a read of the forums so you know how to keep out of this very exclusive club :-)
 
Back
Top