Levels and complications

[sparkyrich]

Having read several posts lately about blood levels, meters (or the lack of), hbA1c readings, legs dropping off and other such savoury topics, I wondered if anyone has done a little basic collation of data?

Im T2, overweight, fairly active and try to watch my carb intake -although not very succesfully. My meter tells me my bg rises into double figures 2 hours after meals with disturbing regularity. On the other hand, my hbA1c comes back in the "Well done, have a pat on the back" bracket virtually every time.
Has anyone actually correlated the results of high bg / good hba1c, low bg / low hba1c, high bg / high hba1c etc?
If it can be shown that bg figures don't matter as long as the hba1c is good then I for one won't grizzle about the lack of test strips. If it DOES matter, then meters and strips should be freely available. It's the 21st century ***. There are magic boxes with keyboards that, by the work of computermerator fairies, can take in much data, juggle it about, then tell you what the answers are. Considering the burden that diabetics are on the NHS, what with their free prescriptions and complications, you'd think it wouldn't be beyond one of the Whitehall monkeys to try to find out?

 

[Squire Fulwood]

Has anyone correlated .............?

The problem is that if you regard your sugar levels as a graph that goes up and down during the course of the day then the test strips only take a snapshot of that graph 2/3/4 times a day. You might test a peak or a trough as you choose but in each case you don't know at any given moment whether the graph is going up or down.

The shape of the graph is governed by a number of things, eating, what was eaten, GI of what was eaten, space between meals, liver rush etc. You would need a lot of strips to get a complete and accurate graph. Averaging the instantaneous readings you take is not ideal even though it is helpful.

The Hba1c is an average of your blood sugar level for the last three months or so and it is not a series of instantaneous readings. It is considered more accurate for this reason.

I spent many months lowering my average test strip readings and got my Hba1c down to 42 and when I tried less hard my Hba1c rose to 46 as per my signature. There is definitely a relationship but for the reasons given above it would be impossible to make a chart showing this. The fingers would probably not take the strain either.