Measuring your blood sugar

[Marlene Faircloth]

I had my blood tested a couple of weeks ago. It was 8.3 and another time it was 55 but in some of the information I have seen measures the sugar count differently can someone explain how these measurements differ and why . I know in America it can be measured at 240 how is that possible.

Many thanks in advance

 

[Martin Canty]

Hi Marlene,
There are a couple of measurements that can be taken, your actual Blood Glucose & HbA1c (which is an average over 3 months)

BG in the UK is measured in mmol/L in the US it's mg/dL, so my mornings reading of 73 would equate to about 4.0 in the UK
A1c in the UK is measured in mmol/mol, in the US it's DCCT% so my last A1c of 5.6% would equate to about 37 in the UK

Your 8.3 was likely a spot BG reading whereas the 55 is likely your A1c

 

[tomcamish]

I recently had a doctor refer to the mmol/mol system as "old school" and went with the DCCT - I think it can sometimes depend on who you're talking to.

For any records I keep I stick to mmol/mol which is what the self testing blood glucose meters use by default.

 

[Deleted member 16779]

Handy chart for future reference: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/attachments/50shades-png.17564/

 

[Robin]

Handy chart for future reference: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/attachments/50shades-png.17564/

Blimey! That chart doesn't go up high enough for what I was at diagnosis ( 16.0 in old money!)

 

[Manda1]

Me neither my blood sugar was 26 at diagnosis .... :0

 

[sunny sanghera]

Mine was 40 at diagnosis

 

[trophywench]

Blimey! That chart doesn't go up high enough for what I was at diagnosis ( 16.0 in old money!)

It goes up to 18.9 Robin !

 

[Robin]

It goes up to 18.9 Robin !

That was my HbA1c, Trophy, not a finger prick. Chart only goes up to 13.5 for that.

 

[trophywench]

Ah - true Robin - didn't look at it properly. Mine was 13 on diagnosis - however since we didn't do fingerprick blood testing in 1972 I have absolutely no idea whether that would have been an HbA1c or a BG.

 

[Ralph-YK]

Two separate tests. Finger prick: what your BG is now. This will vary over the day. It was be the smaller type of numbers. 8.0, 5.1, 11.7 etc.

HbA1c. Average over three months. Blood is taken from the arm, and if you're lucky you get results some time later.
There's two number sceames used for this.
One that gives numbers similar to those from a fingerprick test, and bigger double figures numbers.
Results I've managed to get are in the second one.
In these 48 is when you're diagnosed diabetic. 42 and below is normal. Mine was 64. I know people who were around 100.
At a guess, this will be your 55.

On the diabetes website there is a conversion table.
6.5 = 48
9 = 75.