• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

HbA1c v pin prick test

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
S

Synapse321

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
At risk of diabetes
Results came back from gp. HbA1c is around 43.

Had a pin prick test the other day and came back 5.8 as a random result.

I am confused as the results above contradict each other

Any ideas please?
 
Hello @Synapse321 , welcome to the forum .
It’s confusing isn’t it 🙂.
The Hb1ac mmol/mol is an average of your blood glucose over the past 12 or so weeks.

The finger prick is a different measurement mmol/L and is an on the spot test , of what your your blood glucose is at that time.

How did you come to be tested for diabetes.

With an Hb1ac of 43 you have only just entered the realm of pre diabetes.
42 to 47, with the right info and making a few changes you stand a very good chance of turning this completely around or at least deferring the onset for a long time .

How did you come to be tested for diabetes .

Have you been offered a diabetes prevention course, if not I would ask if one is available in your area.
In the meantime till you learn more , reduce /cut out/ replace the white carbs , ie potatoes, rice, pasta , bread, flour ,Fruit juice though healthy is full of fruit sugar we often have to be careful with fruit.


We usually have no problems with protein and this may surprise you, good fats. Here is a small selection of good things just to get you started.
So if you eat meat ,it’s fine as are eggs, dairy, fresh fish, veg, mushrooms fruit that has berry in its name is often tolerated better than other fruits .
Their are lower carb bread available, many here go for protein bread or the industrially made Burgen bread (I hate the stuff) .

Losing weight if you need to and exercise if able will help greatly.

Ask all the questions you you need to, we will do our best to help.
 
Hi @Synapse321 and welcome.

The results don't contradict each other - as Lin says, the prick test just shows what your blood sugar was doing at that moment in time. If it had been done an hour earlier it might have said 7.0 and if it had been done an hour later it might have said 4.5 (or vice versa) - a prick test is fairly meaningless as a diagnostic tool, it's just useful for people who have diabetes already to be able to tell how different foods effect them from day to day. The HbA1c is the thing you need to tell whether or not you have diabetes - that's more like an average of your blood sugar over the last three months (weighted a bit towards the more recent weeks). And as Lin says, 43 is just tipping over the border into prediabetes, but only just. With a few changes to your diet you should easily be able to get your blood sugar back into the healthy range.
 
Thank you for the replies.

I was tested for HB1Ac just by chance. I thought eroneously that as the prick test came back normal

over the past months and years that I did not have to worry about diabetes.

I see the GP next week - I can guess that he will read the riot act and say it was self inflicted.

What they don't understand is I take clozapine which makes you put on weight by detault.

Should I push the GP to prescribe me something like metformin or would it cause more damage and lay off as long as possibe?
 
You are only just barely prediabetic. Cutting out some of the carbohydrates from your diet will help you to reduce your HbA1c and lose weight, so why not try that before asking for medication which more often than not, upsets people's digestive systems in sometimes rather antisocial ways..... nausea, colic pains, flatulence and diarrhoea. Unless you are already eating next to no bread, or potatoes or rice or pasta or sweet stuff then surely reducing your intake of them is better than taking more tablets.
 
I agree 100% with what you have posted Barbara.

At the moment I have severe IBS and clozapine (is not very often prescribed) which can lead to diabetes.

These two things in combination is a receipe for disaster.

Granted I will start monitoring my food intake from now on which may improve my IBS.

Thanks
 
It's worth having a look at some of the threads on here about foods suitable (and not suitable) for people with prediabetes - with an HbA1c of 43 you won't have to be as strict about cutting carbs as some of the type 2s here are, but you may find there are things you're eating which are increasing your risk of diabetes, and also you may find some ideas of different foods you could eat. I suspect it's a bit of a minefield already with severe IBS - I have managed IBS (no meds - I manage it with diet, after years on Colpermin which I eventually realised I was not actually digesting properly, so it could have had no effect at all!) and that does put some limits on how diabetes-friendly my diet can be, but I've still managed to pick up a few ideas here.
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top