Radical drop in HbA1c

[Davmii]

Hi all,
Don't get a lot of time to get on here lately but would like to share some good news for once. I was diagnosed in April this year with HbA1c of 128 / 13% which I believe is pretty high. After 3 months it was down to 103 / 11.6% after a not too radical diet rethink. I no longer take sugar in coffee, eat chocolate and sweets very occasionally and in small amounts and avoid (mostly) cakes and biscuits. I also stopped smoking, which I wanted to do anyway. Still not too pleased with what I saw as a high level so wifey and I joined a Gym and have been going for about 1 hour 4 times a week for the last 2 months.

Good news is that I had the latest test result today and HbA1c is now down to 46 / 6.4% so something is working.

I have a query about BG meter figures though, are they equivalent to the % measure? How do the scales relate to the HbA1c values? It's confusing to me and maybe to others.

 

[Sheilagh1958]

Well done a great result 🙂

 

[Vicsetter]

Well done on the change.

This page on the Diabetes Uk website tells you: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/what-is-hba1c.html

Your meter should give you averages per week/month etc which is roughly equivalent to the HBA1c at low readings.

 

[Northerner]

Hi Davmii, well done - that is a brilliant result! 🙂 The meter figures and the HbA1c measure quite different things. The meter measures a snapshot of how your blood sugar levels are at the time of taking the test, but the HbA1c measures a more general level over the 6-12 weeks prior to the test. If you do sufficient numbers of fingertip tests at different times of the day then the average of those numbers will correlate to some extent to what your HbA1c will be, but if you (for example) only take fingertip tests when you wake up or before meals etc. then these will not include the times when it was higher. There's a page about the HbA1c here:

http://www.diabetes.org.uk/en/Guide.../Glycated_haemoglobin_HbA1c_and_fructosamine/

 

[trophywench]

Meter avge is usually one or a bit over 1% higher than your A1c. (expressed as a %age, not the new numbers)

If it's the other way round then you aren't catching your highs at their highest and you are spending too much time higher than you want to be.

 

[robofski]

Excellent result, well done 🙂

 

[MaryPlain]

Meter avge is usually one or a bit over 1% higher than your A1c. (expressed as a %age, not the new numbers)

If it's the other way round then you aren't catching your highs at their highest and you are spending too much time higher than you want to be.

That's not my experience. I think it's a bit more complicated than that!
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/hba1c-to-blood-sugar-level-converter.html Try this. For example, an average blood sugar level of 7.5 is roughly an hba1c of 6.0 according to this.