Hi,
@_becs , the main things I've found useful for safely lowering a1c are getting cgm and reading Sugar Surfing by Stephen Ponder, it's on kindle.
Getting cgm will obviously depend on scripting policy in your area, and, if not available, will depend on your finances. Libre sensors are about £100 per month, dexcom can work out the same or cheaper as there are simple ways of restarting them after their "official" 10 day life.
I use libre, free on script, with a MiaoMiao transmitter (one-off cost of £160) on top, sending to the android app xDrip+ (free).
Because I'm getting readings every 5 mins on my phone, it means I can make much more sensible decisions about when to tweak and nudge things a bit to stay in range, and other things like figuring out pre-bolus timings for different types of meals; corrective bolus if it looks like the meal one was too low; basal checking; setting hyper alerts so I can pin a developing high with a few units long before it gets too messy.
Sugar Surfing discusses all those techniques in detail, well worth a read.
The key to getting a safely lower a1c is basically just not to go above 10 too much: this is a lot easier with cgm, but still do-able on strips. If I see about an hour or two after a meal that it's racing skyward, I'm not slow to fire in another unit or two to pin that before it even gets to 8.