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Mrs_D

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Hello!
Newbie here. I was diagnosed with prediabetes around 3 months ago. It was a shock but it was enough of a wake up call to change my habits. I read Michael Mosleys books and decided to follow his diet plan. I lost 1 stone which is huge for me as I've always struggled to lose weight. I went back for another hba1c test and my number went from 42 to 44! I have no idea what to do. Most days I have a salad for lunch and then meat or fish with veggies for dinner. I've cut out nearly all alcohol. I don't eat biscuits, cakes or any sweet things.

I'm now trying out a CGM to see what it is that's killing my numbers. I'm not sure how these numbers relate to the 44? Please could someone explain.

Thanks!
 
Mrs_D said:
Hello!
Newbie here. I was diagnosed with prediabetes around 3 months ago. It was a shock but it was enough of a wake up call to change my habits. I read Michael Mosleys books and decided to follow his diet plan. I lost 1 stone which is huge for me as I've always struggled to lose weight. I went back for another hba1c test and my number went from 42 to 44! I have no idea what to do. Most days I have a salad for lunch and then meat or fish with veggies for dinner. I've cut out nearly all alcohol. I don't eat biscuits, cakes or any sweet things.

I'm now trying out a CGM to see what it is that's killing my numbers. I'm not sure how these numbers relate to the 44? Please could someone explain.

Thanks!
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Welcome to the forum, how disappointing that your HbA1C actually went up but the weight loss has likely had benefits anyway so very well done.
I hope you find the information from a CGM useful in identifying what the problem may be but do be aware of the limitations and try not to over react if you get some unexpected results. It will be useful if you keep a food diary along side using the CGM so you can tie up any thing which is causing an issue.
Don't forget the CGM measures something different from the HbA1C but should still allow you to see if there are any foods which are giving high blood glucose readings 2 hours after meals. the CGM result will be in mmol/l not mmol/mol as the HbA1C is. There is no direct relationship between the two other than if the CGM shows high readings the more likely the HbA1C will be high though the CGM will give a predicted HbA1C. For some people it will be pretty accurate for others not so great but it does need a good amount of data on which to base the estimate.
 
Welcome to the forum @Mrs_D

Sorry to hear you didn’t get the reduction in your HbA1c you had hoped for :(

There’s not a huge difference between 42 and 44, though I can appreciate you’d have preferred it to go down two rather than up two… but you held things fairly level between the two.

The target for Libre / fingerstick values is to aim for 4-7 before meals and no higher than 8.5 by 2 hours after meals.

Libre offers various views to help you analyse the results you are getting from your sensor, including “time in range”. The higher your TIR, the more likely it is that your HbA1c will begin to ease down.

Libre also offers an estimate of overall management, called something like GMI? (glucose management indicator) which attempts to estimate what HbA1c might result. Though those are only estimates, and rarely precise predictions!
 
Hi and welcome from me too.

Sounds like you have got off to a brilliant start, so well done! Michael Mosley talked and wrote a lot of sense.
I can understand how a slight rise in HbA1c must feel like a kick in the teeth after all your hard work although there will be a error margin in HbA1c readings so I always consider that each reading could be 1 mmol either side. So your 42 could have been 41 or 43 and your 44 could have been 43 or 45. So it is possible that it hasn't changed at all. Those 2 results are certainly in the same ball park, so to speak, so nothing to be concerned about but can see why you would be disappointed as you had a right to expect a reduction with a stone weight loss and the dietary changes you have made to achieve it. I wonder if there is something else going on that accounts for those readings or the possible slight rise, despite your fantastic weight loss. Have you been ill in the last couple of months (Covid perhaps?) as that could easily increase HbA1c. Anaemia will also sometimes inflate your HbA1c? Do you know if they did a full blood analysis to check for that? Women of a certain age can be more prone to it anaemia.
 
Mrs D certainly appears to be 'of a certain age' - and even though us more reliably educated ladies might think we know 'all about' our female hormones, until we've had diabetes for quite a while sometimes (for me, 30 ish years) we still aren't personally aware of what diabetic havoc they can wreak - until the havoc suddenly affects our blood glucose like a proverbial ton of bricks. Been there done that, deep sigh! Do at the very least, please, ask your GP where your body happens to currently be along the hormonal time scale.

One of the endos at my old hospital said to me once that for them it would be brill if all humans had all their hormone levels recorded when they were youngish, fit as a flea, adults - so when they later presented with Lord knows what symptoms - they could just check them all again and see what was now different! - but knew very well that hardly ever happened so just had to make their assessment on the current evidence rather than anything concrete.
 
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