New diagnosis

[Gemmy371]

I am nearly diagnosed and I am quite confused.
I have been taking Metformin for nearly 2 weeks but as yet I am to see a diabetic nurse who I hope will give me all the information I need.

I had gestational diabetes and now 5 years later I presume is type 2. I have been checking my blood glucose levels as I did whilst pregnant and have reduced them to mostly between 4-7.

My question is is checking glucose at home a good indicator to hopefully reducing the hb1ac level on my next check?

I have a list of questions when I do see the nurse. I feel like the gp didn’t really give me sufficient information at the time of discussing the blood result with me.

 

[KennyA]

Hi Gemmy371 and welcome to the forums.

The answer to your question is "it might be". The A1c isn't an average of your fingerprick tests. The reason is that the fingerprick test and the HbA1c are testing blood sugars in different ways (and the Libre CGM does it another way again): the fingerprick does it directly, while the A1c looks at a proxy - how many red blood cells have had glucose attached to them. The fingerprick is an instant snapshot, the A1c gives you a sort of average over the last three months with a skew towards recent weeks.

The issue with the fingerprick is that it doesn't tell you what's happening five minutes before or five minutes after you tested, or when you're not testing - overnight, for example. The issue with the A1c is that it can't tell you how you react to various foods and stimuli (exercise, illness etc), They're for different purposes, really.

However - if you're seeing consistently low fingerprick test results first thing and after eating, and maintaining that for a fair period of time (I mean weeks and months) in my experience it's reasonable to expect that your A1c will be also lower next time it's tested. There isn't a direct read-across, but it tells you where you're heading.

Best of luck. The figures you quote are good.