Sorry to hear you are having such a hard time with your doctors. I have found out over the years it takes time & work to find a doctor or team you can work with. My A1C is not as low as yours but my team & I have come to an agreement on what number works for me not what number the ADA thinks I should have or what number the insurance company thinks I should have. Everyone of us is different and everyone will approach their disease differently. I know when I was with Kaiser here in Southern California I never saw an endo. I saw a great CDE nurse practitioner who handled everything for me. After I left her I again didnât see an endo but a PA who worked in an endo office. I am now back with an endo after almost 10 years without. ( everyone always flips out when they hear I donât see an endo) But my new doctor and I had that heart to heart talk at the beginning and I think he realized that after 45 years, no complications and pretty good numbers he could work with me and my goals. If he couldnât I would have tried to find someone else. Hang in there and keep fighting. There is a medical professional out there who thinks like you do. I have found most are okay win things that are not usual if it works for you.
Many of us deal with this, we have spent so much time and energy dealing with our conditionâŚIâm forced to see my Endo every three
months because thatâs the general rule for a pumper. Sometimes he says things that are completely wrong for me but I just keep my mouth shut and try to keep a friendly business relationship, I need him and he is very pro Pump/CGM . After spending almost 4 decades controlling my blood sugar I can safely say no one knows better than me whatâs going to happen when I inject insulin, eat something, or exercise. I think after spending 20 or 30 years with insulin dependence a âGoodâ Doctor will respect your knowledge and listen quietly when you have something to sayâŚ
If your endo is unpersuaded by your actual blood sugar numbers, as documented with a properly calibrated CGM, I canât imagine theyâll be swayed by some online poll you conducted. If at all possible, you need a new doctor. If thatâs not possible, then all you can do is soberly lay out your case, documented by facts. And never forget, or let them forget, that you, and not they, are ultimately in charge of your health.
As for your condition, super low A1cs on a higher-carb diet, like @acidrock23 and some others achieve (Iâve seen him eat waffles drenched in maple syrup, no less!) always make me wonder about undiagnosed monogenetic diabetes. But if youâve previously had far higher A1cs, and managed to bring them down through diligent efforts, which describes acidrock and some others, that would seem to discount my monogenetic hypothesis.
I heard god things about KP in Southern CA, a friend who hadKP had John Walsh has her CDE when first Dxâd. KP in the NW isnât quite to good - in my opinion. I wish I could just find another Endo practice, but for now I am stuck with the KP MDâs.
if they donât believe you, why do you think they will believe what people here report to them? maybe instead you could point to some other markers of good health that you have that a person going low or high a lot would not have. like a report from your eye doctor that you have no signs of retinopathy or something like that.
on the other hand, if they wonât believe evidence you put in front of their face, why engage them at all beyond getting your prescriptions filled?
This ^^^. I got so sick and tired of my daughterâs endo accusing me of making her have too many lows just so she would have a low A1c (despite CGM and pump data proving otherwise) that we switched endos. Even though we like the new one more, I still view endo appointments as something to endure every 4 months, a meeting during which I smile and nod, get the scripts, then go home and manage my daughterâs Type 1 the right way.
I totally get what youâre saying about the silliness of them insisting low a1c must equal excessive hyposâŚ
At the same time Iâm kind of surprised that as a physician you are dismissive of the expertise of other physicians in their specific fields⌠Most doctors I know tend to stick up for each other, knowing first hand the level of training and education in their specific field theyâre put throughâŚ
Iâm not âdismissive of the expertise of other physicians in their specific fieldsâ. Iâm just dismissive of idiot endos that donât believe an A1c of 5.2 is achievable without excessive hypoglycemic episodes.
I agree that there may be other things going on @niccolo, if not officially un-dxed MODY variants, it seems as if some differences may exist that we could say are uninvestigated in normal medical practice.
That was a very sensible way to eat a 15" tall stack of chicken and waffles, splitting it among 6 people!! Plus we had a doctor with us!! Hee heeâŚ
@Brian_BSC, the poll appears to be jacked-up as the results (0% below 6, whereas yesterday, with less responses, it was something like 72% below 6%?). Iâm not sure if we can fix it or if it needs to be redone somehow?
This just sounds bogus to me. One of the criteria when I got my pump was an A1C under 10, or maybe 9. If a person is constantly having highs over 250, they will not know if itâs a pump problem or a 'betes problem.
Hi!
My A1C has consistently been under 6.0 since diagnosis (most recent is 5.6), though my lowest is 5.5.
I do not use a CGM (insurance refuses to pay for one unless I am either 25 or experienced a hypo that required assistance from another person to bring it up), but I am really OCD about my BG (I test an average of 6-12x depending on if Iâm basal testing or diabetes is being weird). I eat reduced carb (<100-120g of net carbs per day), keep super detailed logs about how certain foods affect me (or avoid certain foods all together), and constantly assess what I need to do to adjust my BG at every reading (consuming a few grams of CHO if I donât like the combination of my BG and IOB or micro-correcting to get myself a tiny bit lower). My family finds it hilarious that I start walking around the house if my BG is high (because Iâm too impatient to correct and wait instead of seeing a drop less than 10 minutes after walking).
It sounds like that endo is another word for a donkey. Iâm surprised my endo/NP (I see the NP more often than I do the endo, but I love my NP) donât freak out at my low A1C. The DOC isnât necessarily an accurate representation of the diabetes population though (I think most of us panic if our BG rise above 140 
).
I just gotta get in a plug here for the Big Blue Test, hope you do one every time you walk around the house to lower your bg!
I replied, No, but the survey didnât count my vote. Boo! You know that statistically the results or a poll like this are very unreliable, right? Still, itâs fun to see the results.
I know it isnât scientific, nor verifiable. But, I am dealing with an Endo practice that give me a hard time - insisting that I am going to âwake up deadâ and gives the CDE who understands my micro-mgt and smart approach as valid - anyway they give her a hard time (for which I feel bad). I mention that in the DOC there are people with T1 who do manage to do a good job. This confirms my belief. Itâs like a PWD2 being able to âshowâ that not all PWD2âs have type 2 and the co-morbidities of stupidity and laziness. Thanks to everyone for responding.
Since my health plan requires that I see this practice, I am looking for another health plan (there are two in whose network - I hate that invention - who has type 1) and I am trying to see what pumps they cover etc.
If I could, I would fly to my former city every three months to see my former Endo. But that would leave me in a fix if I got hit by a bus where I live now. Theyâd find out I donât live in the former city anymore and maybe that would be insurance fraud!
Thanks again for everyoneâs support.
Iâm not sure what happened to the poll but the results appear to be broken. Iâll look into it but there may not be much hope. Since there was basically nobody who refused to answer the numbers donât make sense.
Thanks Brian, at least I learned that there more of us - and I can truthfully say that I am not âdoing it wrongâ. I sure appreciate the DOC for being like me in many ways. Sometimes the white lab coats think either too highly of themselves or too little (lowly?) of us. rgainMD sounds like a terrific MD and her attitude regarding her daughter is laudable.
I also replied no, and thought my answer wasnât counted as well since it still said 0% when I checked, but the results are now split 60% and 40%, which seems more realisticâŚ
What would be fascinating would be to set up a survey thread asking about A1c level and a bunch of other questions (type of diabetes, age at diagnosis, duration of diabetes, treatment, diet, exercise, age, type of job, presence of other health issues, etc.) and seeing if thereâs anything that about the under-6 people or about things they do that stands out. It obviously wouldnât be scientific, but it would be extremely interesting! Iâve seen @acidrock23 post several times saying he wishes there was more research done into that type of thing.
Iâd like to see it compared to certain standardized tests like perhaps ASVAB (armed services vocational aptitude battery) which is a test that essentially measures different aptitudes such as mechanical reasoning, etc⌠I think that weâd almost certainly see similar measurable trends in aptitudes and correlation to a1c