Confused on measurements for diabetes

[Shirley Bov]

i was yesterday diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. This was a shock for me and I was obviously searching for info last night and speaking to others who had or had relatives with T2 Diabetes to gather as much information as I could digest. The issue I had was with the reading I had been given by the practice nurse - 56. Everyone else seemed to have a single digit reading ie 7. Could anyone explain the difference? Isn’t there one universal measurement for diabetes?

 

[Greyhound Gal]

It sounds as though your 56 was from an HbA1c test. This measures your average blood glucose levels over the past 2-3 months, and is from a blood test from your arm. Anything over 47 is in the diabetic range.
The 7 could either be a single finger prick test where a drop of blood is taken from the finger and tested, or the old percentage way of giving the HbA1c results (which was changed a couple of years ago but some health professionals still use it). If it was 7%, that would equate to about 53/54 in new terms.
They should have explained what the test was 🙄
Hope that makes sense.🙂

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Good explanation by @Greyhound Gal - very frustrating when people are just given a number with no context or units. We see this so often on the forum!

But yes 56mmol/mol (the new International way of expressing HbA1c) would have been expressed as 7.3% in the old days.

The recommended target is below 48mmol/mol (6.5%). People without diabetes are likely to have a value up to 42mmol/mol.

 

[Carolg]

Hello Shirley and welcome to the forum.

 

[Copepod]

Welcome to the forum Shirley.
It's completely wrong to give just a single figure, without units and name of test. Unfortunately, it's common among posters on this forum. It sounds like your 7 was HbA1c, unit %. However it is usually given to 1 decimal place eg HbA1c 7.x%. 56 sounds like is could be HbA1c, in old units mmol/mol.
Finger prick tests give results in mmol/l, with the usual range 4.0 - 10.0mmol/l. Anything lower than 4.0mmol/l is hypoglycaemic and above 10.0mmol/l needs action to reduce.

 

[Ralph-YK]

56 sounds like is could be HbA1c, in old units mmol/mol.

I thought HbA1c of 56 would be in the new units.

Diabetes UK page about tests. HbA1c is half way down. There used to be a conversion table. Now there is just a convertion thing.
https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-to-diabetes/managing-your-diabetes/testing

And here is a convertion table
http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/documents/866/HbA1c converter.pdf

 

[Ditto]

Hello Shirley Bov, welcome to the forum. 🙂

 

[spiritfree]

Hello Shirley Bov and welcome to the forum.