In a few weeks, I will need to have blood work done again. The new doctor said to find out what my A1C is but because I have no insurance I need to find a place where I can get the blood drawn for free or sliding scale. He didn't mention if I need the whole panel or not.
My question is: am I really only needing to get my A1C redone or do I need to get a full blood panel done (kidneys, pancreas)? This would be my second blood since being diagnosed. They did a full blood on me that time.
Do everyone get everything tested each time or just the A1C? If it is really just the A1C, than someone mentioned I could go to one of those CVS or Walgreens clinic - as they have those new machines.
Just wondering what everyone else does normally - or it dependant on what your doctor thinks each time.
Typically, to go along with the a1c, they run a either a comprehensive metabolic panel which is a set of 14 tests blood tests, or a basic metabolic panel which is a subset of 8 blood tests.
Do you see your doctor every 3 months regardless even if you are doing welll? Just wondering if everyone does. I am new at this so not sure.
Things seem to be working OK for me so I am thinking that if I can get a free A1C that would be good. If I had insurance I would just go in to the doctor (who isn’t free btw which is why I am only trying to get done what I really need) and have him to whatever he wants. But I can’t afford that.
I am thinking I can just get my A1C done and send him the results and if he wants to see me or have something else done he will let me know.
I have a 24-hour urine collection done once a year, eye exam once a year & blood panels done twice a year (fasting tests). I’m hypothyroid & thyroid tests are done more often.
it might depend too on how your last work up was. In my case, (i was only diagnosed a couple months ago) my last workup my trig’s were high and i had sugar in my urinalysis, so the doc is going to recheck the whole set including A1C. He told me that if that all looks good on the next go around, that the A1C will be every three months going forward with the full workup once a year.
If you aren’t doing a fasting BG test, then i dont think you need to fast for just an A1C.
My new endo has me seeing him every three months atm. My CMP, lipid panels, and A1c are fine but my spot urine is showing microalbumin. Typically, if that happens, they follow up every three months to either confirm initial results and formally diagnose microalbuminuria, or determine that the results were transient. So far, he ran CMP, lipids, and spot urine the first time I saw him, and just BMP and follow up spot urines since.
It looks like you’re recently diagnosed. Gerri’s schedule is fairly typical, from what I gather, as long as your tests do not indicate complications. If your tests back in February are fine, you probably don’t have to worry about anything other than an A1c for now.
If there is any way to get advice from an endo regarding what tests you need now based on your results when dxed, and somehow have them done, that would be best though. =/
Here’s a link to a checklist that shows the tests, frequencies, and target ranges for diabetes health. Alert: you have to register on the website in order to the get this downloadable list. I’ll try to attach here, but not sure it will work. 6429-DocCheckup.pdf (138 KB)
I think for now I am going for that Free A1C test at CVS and take it from there. I send a copy of the test results to my doctor and see what happens from there.
Still will look around for a place to have a lower cost blood full panel done? I think there might be a place but I have to look into it more.
