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I only ask because some doctors only want testing done at 3 month intervals, I’d like to be tested every month, I had to plead with a doctor to let me have a test after 2 months which was a massive improvement.
Can this test only be used once for £45
Curious as to why you feel a more frequent HbA1c would help you?
Do you monitor your BG with a regular meter around eating, activity, illness etc? This generally gives you more immediate and actionable information than an HbA1c which is far slower to respond and only offers a vague general picture of the last 120 days.
Also I believe home HbA1c checks aren’t anything like as reliable as blood sent to a proper lab.
£45 a month would buy quite a few strips for some of the affordable BG meters. Eg the SD Codefree (approx £8 for 50 strips) - so £45 would give you over 280 strips a month once you’d got the meter.
Yup, you are just getting paranoid! If you are consistently in that BG range and you are measuring before and after eating, then look forward to having a HBA1c somewhere in the 30's at your next test. As ed&d says, routine finger pricking, and reacting to the readings if need be, is a far more powerful feedback loop than HBA1c testing.
Also, are you referring to the HBA1c meters you see advertised? If so then I would echo ed&d's point about the reliability of the results. Check out the grey impossible to read small print in the stuff put out by the people selling them. Tells a different story to that implied by their headlines.
Does your BG meter reveal - either in words or a graph - your 'time in range' over the last length of time? Mine the time is adjustable from about a week to 3 months, hence if I adopt some new treatment, or new activity or have been ill or something, the results there compared to my time in range prior to whatever changed will reveal if the change is having an overall affect on my BG.
Only if the next HbA1c is completely out of kilter with the averages then somethings up - eg I'm shooting up (or down) in between the times I test my blood on a day to day basis, or the parameters I've set my meter at for 'In range' are far too wide, or simply that the meter isn't accurate enough.
All a frequent A1c will reflect on a monthly basis is approximately what your turnover of red blood corpuscles is!
if your testing daily then that's all you need really, it would cost a fortune for them to conduct a hba1c test every month, I had 1 month interval and then a 2 month but that was completely different circumstances, I'm Type 1 and had a really low hba1c so they wanted to keep an eye on it as it isn't good to be too low if using insulin, I haven't had mine checked since May and I'm absolutely fine with that
I feel lucky to get a Hba1c test once a year. My GP practice really doesn't work very well.
However, I am pretty confident is is going to give me the same answer, to life, the universe and everything - just somehow have that feeling.
So I don't really worry about it.
I stick to the diet because it is the way I ought to eat to feel as well as I can do and I like that. I don't worry very much though. I've never found that it does much to help the situation.
MonitorMyHealth Is an NHS lab, in Exeter, who do this in quiet times, in NHS labs. I have used the service for thyroid monitoring, and found it impressive in terms of speed and service levels
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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
