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Targets for HBA1c?

A

annelise

Well-Known Member
Messages
234
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Unfriendly and bigotted persons; i.e. persons who do not have an open or enquiring mind - but all within reason - persons may have a reason to appear as such - we will never know their backgrounds or where they come from ...
Hello all,

I am new to this forum (have just joined after lurking a bit) but have had T2 since August 2012.

And please excuse me if my post will be stepping on someone's toes.

What I wonder about now are the numbers/targets you report (HBA1c) (have read a lot of posts) – some of them seem rather high to my thinking and understanding. I myself am presently actively trying to get into to 5 % range (still not attained).

Please see the link http://bloodsugar101.com/ which some of you may already be familiar with, to get an idea about what I mean.

Not meaning to preach …

Annelise (Denmark)
 
Hi Annelise

Jenny Ruhl's is a brilliant place for diabetics it certainly helped me when I first started testing my blood sugar.
 
I agree Jenny Ruhl's site is a good resource which is very detailed and helpful.
Unfortunately the units of measure for most of the numbers need to translated from the "American" system.
I bought and read the book and was delighted when I got myself into the 5% club.
But......
I haven't stayed there and many can't or won't reach the levels she advocates.

Hard as it appears, I think there are quite a few definitions of what your target level should be, with Jenny's at the lower end and the NHS at the high end. All you can do is read as much as you can and make your own mind up.
 
Mongoose39uk said:
Deleted but user will remain on my block list
Click to expand...

OK, I guess this just scared me off from the forum.

annelise
 
Hi there.....
Slightly baffled of Cornwall here. I seem to have missed something, and exchange between annelise and Mongoose39uk. Block list?? deleted?? It would be a shame indeed if we have fallen out.
 
lrw60 said:
Hi there.....
Slightly baffled of Cornwall here. I seem to have missed something, and exchange between annelise and Mongoose39uk. Block list?? deleted?? It would be a shame indeed if we have fallen out.
Click to expand...

lrw60, - I am baffled too. No private mail exchange here - only what you see on the board. And I do not know what has been deleted or how I may have offended Mongoose. But it does make me wary of posting here.

annelise
 
annelise said:
lrw60, - I am baffled too. No private mail exchange here - only what you see on the board. And I do not know what has been deleted or how I may have offended Mongoose. But it does make me wary of posting here.

annelise
Click to expand...

Please don't be wary of posting here annelise, we are all friends with the same sort of problem. Sometimes I think I may have said something to upset someone or make them wary of replying, but so far everyone has been ok. I believe that it is almost (almost!!) impossible to offend your friends. Lets stay friends.
Lee
 
I read the deleted post before it was deleted. Mongoose seemed to react to Annelise's post in a hostile way that I could not understand. I assumed that they knew each other and were having a spat. Either that or Mongoose completely misunderstood what Annelise had said.

Anyway, I decided to stay out of it and I still don't understand it.

Welcome Annelise.
 
Hi Annelise. To answer your initial post, for UK residents there is a good Pathways document on the web provided by NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) which drives much of our UK health system. You can find it by Googling the 'Nice Diabetes Pathways'. It provides a flow-chart of actions for varying levels of HBa1C. You definitely want to be below 7.5% and be aiming to be below 6% which you are doing.
 
Kind of weird that people above 6% are considered normal though :/ Puts a lot of pressure on the diabetics or does it leave the undiagnosed and prediabetics to rot or both?

Don't be discouraged Annalise, you are welcome here. And you have every right to question the figures being aimed for on this forum and elsewhere because targets vary so much.

On thing to remember about this condition is it can sometimes make one a little sad or confused or moody... Don't take it personally. We want to be your friends and offer as much advice as possibly. Or even just a place to vent your frustration (provided it isn't targeted at other members :3)

Many hugs xxx


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 
annelise said:
What I wonder about now are the numbers/targets you report (HBA1c) (have read a lot of posts) – some of them seem rather high to my thinking and understanding. I myself am presently actively trying to get into to 5 % range (still not attained).
Click to expand...

When I was diagnosed I was something like 8.9% but got it down to 6.5% in 8 weeks. I won't have another test for a few months but hope I will be in the 5% - 6% range by then.

Your desire to get into the 5% range is a worthwhile objective but don't be upset if you are nearer to 6% than 5%. Even 6.5% is regarded as OK for a type 2 diabetic. The important thing is to keep trying to get it low and not give up thinking, I have done what I set out to do, now I can eat what I want.

Do you mind if I ask where you are from in Demark?
 
Thank you all for your encouraging remarks. I have decided to consider the 'baffling' post from Mongoose as a 'one-off' occurrence and not consider it as the usual tone on the forum.

Yorksman said:
Do you mind if I ask where you are from in Demark?
Click to expand...

Yorksman, I am from the nothern suburbs of Copenhagen. - But it might interest you that I was once in the company of a person from the York area and a person from the very northwest point of Jutland. When they started speaking in their respective local dialects, they perfectly understood one another, but no one else in the company had a clue to what they were talking about! - And some of my ancestors came from the western part of Jutland - so considering the traffic in Viking times, we may be family

annelise
 
annelise said:
Yorksman, I am from the nothern suburbs of Copenhagen. - But it might interest you that I was once in the company of a person from the York area and a person from the very northwest point of Jutland.
Click to expand...

I was in Roskilde last summer to visit the Vikingeskibsmuseet and I took the opportunity to go to the Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen and also called in at the Ribevikingecenter before catching the ferry back from Esbjerg. I'm sure I have a lot of distant relatives, they're all on this yDNA map of Hg I1:



but it's been a long time since we could understand a language like this:

Sveinn konungr setti stein eptir Skarða, sinn heimþega, er var farinn vestr, en nú varð dauðr at Heiðabý

but you can still recognise some words and get the sense.

Swein King set stone .... Skarthi (personal name) ..... fared west (England) ...now..death Hedeby

There is an outside chance that this Skarthi may be the Skarthi who founded Skarthaborg, modern day Scarborough.
 

Yes Yorksman, I can actually kind of understand it - Sveinn is Svend in current Danish. - I had to take a course in 'Old English' at the Copenhagen University, so among other things there, I had to go into the original Beowulf. Was not fun at the time. Had to make an analysis paper on the various old English dialect variations at the time. -

Yes, I am also into Viking lore (and museums)

annelise
 
Harping back to the original topic about targets. In my cups the other day I was reading something about Hba1c targets and it came as a surprise to me that some people have "do not go below" targets. I had never thought of that. Mine have always been "do not exceed" type targets and since I mostly only worry about me it never occurred to me that some people might have trouble keeping their levels up.

It just goes to show that I read too much and worry myself needlessly.
 
When it comes to targets, the medical professions have to be careful. If they set targets that are too hard for many to achieve, they may have the effect of stopping the majority from trying to meet their targets.

The NICE targets are a happy medium, a level that should prevent or minimise most complications, but they are above 'normal'.

Some of us are lucky enough to have been diagnosed early enough that we can take action and return our BG levels to normal or thereabouts, sometimes without medication, but the truth is that we are in the minority.

The closer we can keep out BG profiles and hence, HbA1c, to normal, the lower our risk of complications. Some of us may even have lower BG spikes than many non-diabetic people.

As has been said earlier, if you are on medications that have a chance of causing a hypo, you need to keep the bottom of your BG troughs as above 4mmol/l at all times. The good news is that, generally, BG is essentially symmetric. Lower peaks mean lower troughs. If you can keep your BG in a narrow range, you will improve your chances.
 
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