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Prioritising HbA1c?

T2#Me said:
Nicely put. You can't. The more you learn, the more you disbelieve. LOL.
However, speaking just for myself, we can only go by the resources available, I suppose, and experience, and good advice. More here than in my surgery, I find.
I had a similar experience with the blood pressure, so now I use a home machine and take my blood pressure every morning, same time same place, and keep a record to take to the surgery. My surgery has a blood pressure machine in reception which (a) hurts my arm (2) gives different readings depending how deep your arm is inserted (3) gives mad readings sometimes ... they even give a warning that is the pressure is too high, get it done again by a nurse.And my home machine sometimes plays silly ******* as well ...
I'm treating the whole thing as a warning and a learning experience, and I have never felt better than when I restarted lchf and walking, so all good so far.:)
Best wishes.

Edited by mod for asterisks
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@Brunneria ... sorry for the astericks ... slip of the tongue :rolleyes:
 
"I have only seen this doctor, are there others so convinced?"

It did not seem to me that the video was based on just one doctors opinion there where after all several doctors featured and plenty of physical evidence and therapeutic results of their stance on the dangers of transient sugar spikes.

And the A1c is an average and will even out transient highs and lows so cannot show you what your sugars are at any one time
Reminiscent of Heisenberg uncertainty principle in a way.
 
All I can find is 2 test for £100+ if one was a professional you could get 20 strips for a reasonable price.

The hba1c is only of marginal benifit with RH and has no normalisation for difference in red blood cell turnover.

However, cutting down on blood tests at surgeries is obviously occurring and is a major blow against self management.

Penny wise and pound foolish with the masses! Whereas the wealthy have tax cuts when we all should pay more for our health service.

It enough to make one support Jeremy! :)
D.
 
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Mr_Pot said:
Next time get them to lend you a 24hr recording blood pressure monitor and they will change their minds.
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I've done that. I've bought a meter of my own too. But there is a never ending supply of different doctors and different nurses arranged by our local practice, so there is a never ending supply of people to argue with once they've revealed they can't be bothered to read the note the GP put on the screen. You might also notice the certainty of NHS staff arguments is usually in reverse proportion to their level of information. The care assistant person who takes the blood is absolutely CERTAIN she must do things on the list (reads blood pressure three times) while the consultant of 25 years will say 'you might think about doing this.'
 
T2#Me said:
Nicely put. You can't. The more you learn, the more you disbelieve. LOL.
However, speaking just for myself, we can only go by the resources available, I suppose, and experience, and good advice. More here than in my surgery, I find.
I had a similar experience with the blood pressure, so now I use a home machine and take my blood pressure every morning, same time same place, and keep a record to take to the surgery. My surgery has a blood pressure machine in reception which (a) hurts my arm (2) gives different readings depending how deep your arm is inserted (3) gives mad readings sometimes ... they even give a warning that is the pressure is too high, get it done again by a nurse.And my home machine sometimes plays silly ******* as well ...
I'm treating the whole thing as a warning and a learning experience, and I have never felt better than when I restarted lchf and walking, so all good so far.:)
Best wishes.

Edited by mod for asterisks
Click to expand...
Thanks. I love the vision of the machine in reception. Of course that will never raise anyone's blood pressure, will it?
 
paulmh said:
OK I’m now beginning to think this is the stuff I could do with understanding a lot better. When I do bg tests during the day they can be all sorts - for instance this morning, after some light exercise and before I’d eaten anything it was 9.6. When I’d tested when I woke up it was 6.4. Now my routines haven’t changed and those routines led to a good HbA1c, but clearly I’m having spikes. Why are spikes a bad thing if my average is good? Why am I even having them? Is this something to do with the “severity” of my condition?

Maybe there are threads on the forum someone could steer me to to better understand spikes?
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Humans are hugely variable and complicated and all sorts of things can affect blood sugar levels. Including stressing about blood sugar levels!
But many of the things we can’t do much about eg if we are ill. So I stick to measuring after meals (now on an infrequent basis) when I do have some control, as I can control what I eat. I don’t worry about them at other times...
The HbA1c is a good long term indicator but it is a retrospective average and not perfect. Trying to reduce post meal spikes just makes logical sense to me, as non-diabetic people don’t have spikes and this is what I am aiming to mimic as much as I can.
 
Many thanks for the info, I think my approach up till now has been pretty blunt instrument which has been effective up to a point without me really knowing why. It might carry on being effective but some people’s experience would seem to suggest that it might not, so it’s probably time to try and get a better understanding of the condition generally, and how it affects me specifically.
 
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