I'm pretty bummed out.... did my A1c and it's a freaking 7.6. I thought maybe I did something wrong, so I redid the test again using the 2nd packet.... 7.5
WTF... One change that happened in the last 2 weeks is increase my anti-depressant meds from 2 tablets/day to 3 tablets/day per doc's suggestion.
I admit, my diet has been not great/perfect but so was during the previous months. So if my diet was bad, I should have noticed the gradual increase since last Feb/Mar/April, .....
But No... it's just a sudden spike to 7.6... It's alarming!!!
I just did my BG right now and it's 95, 4 hrs after dinner. If I don't eat anything, it will stay this way throughout the night.
Did you change labs? Different labs have different reference ranges and I can see +/- 1.0 A1C difference in my local labs reference ranges quite easily.
Are you getting an A1C every month like your graph implies?
I would personally ascribe a lot more weight to daily bg tests than to A1C’s. Often I find that when I feel best about the quality of my bg control my A1C inches up a couple tenths, and when I feel crappy about the quality of my bg control (most often too many hypos) my A1C actually drops. My docs might say that I’m doing a good job because my A1C dropped but really I feel worse because my blood sugar is zinging around (including zinging low). For those reasons I have a hard time feeling that A1C is closely related to any sort of personal self-worth or even as a measure of my results in bg control.
My comment was to kind of imply that even an “official lab” can sometimes have some variance in its A1C (and sometimes even outright screws them up.) If someone make 20 measurements and they all read the same thing I’d start to believe that the meter needle was stuck so I EXPECT to see some kind of variances along the line
And emotionally, getting a lot of Durm and Strang tied up in what your A1C is can mess you up… it may be a really popular thing to do here on tudiabetes or other internet discussion boards… but really we all are much more (as people) than our A1C’s.
I’ve been told that glycosylation continues after blood is drawn, so if say my bg is on the high side at a lab draw, if it sits in the test tube doohickey for a whole day before being stuck in the machine, that the bg at my moment of the blood draw will drag my A1C up.
Since the home test presumably uses a different technology than the office test I could certainly believe the change in meds could be a factor. I would not think a T2 with a 7.6 would spend much time at 95. A 7.6 corresponds to an average blood glucose of 172 so if you’re spending much time at 95 you would have to be spending a good amount to time way above.
I would increase my daily testing to see if there are any unexpected highs and if not throw out the 7.6
yeah, i’m going back to 2 meds, and looks like I have to cut back on meal portions, go back to more testing especially after meals. – and get back on regular exercising too.
Well, this number lit a fire under me to get back on the saddle again.
This will be 3 months of work to make this come down below 6.00 again.
What I did is cut back my anti-depressant meds to 2 per day again… also watched meal portions more carefully… (still not perfect though)… and dragged myself to start exercising and doing more physical activity again… especially after dinner! Even a 15min. stationary bike ride helps a bit. Avoided midnight snacking.
From 7.6 last month down to 6.2 this latest result. I’ll take that…
My goal next month is bring it down to under 6.0 again.
I started to reply to this post (asking if your daily numbers seemed to indicate the same rise), but then realized the post was a month old. I love getting positive feedback instantly like that…lol.
My only cautionary note: Only you know what kind of results you are getting with the lower dose of anti-depressants but please don’t sacrifice your emotional well-being for your A1C. Not only is Depression no fun at all to live with, but being clinically depressed would be likely to impact your motivation to manage your blood sugar, test, eat well, exercise, etc. So it might even be counter-productive. Another option might be to supplement the anti-depressant with some therapy. The combination of therapy (usually cognitive) and meds is the best practice treatment for Depression. Ok, that’s my 2 cents! Congrats on getting it back down!
I usually have good results with the home kit, within .2%. However, last week I had a lab draw at my endo and it was 5.2% and the home kit was 5.9% on the same day. My meter average is more on course with the 5.9%. Very surprised when then called me today.
