So, I finally got my results back from my HbA1c after my interim diabetic checkup, and it wasn’t great news.
As I’ve discussed, having dropped from a dangerously high blood sugar reading of 79 mmol/mol (9.4%) in December to an amazing 42 (6.0%) on 30th March, I was fully expecting to have continued on that same trajectory, which would have taken me down to the mid 30s in mmol/mol (5.3-5.6%)!
Best case, I was hoping maybe to be even in the early 30’s (5.0-5.2%). A very optimistic part of me was hoping that I’d hit the late 20’s (4.6-4.8%), taking me very close to my ultimate goal which is a “normal/healthy” A1c!
So I was really quite crestfallen to see my new number was 40 (5.8%)! Just 2 points down from my last test which was six weeks before.
Now, it must be said that in that period, I had a couple of pretty bad “cheat days” – one just aroudn ten days before my test – and the way the HbA1c test works, it does “prioritise” the more recent results. But it was just one or two meals out of six weeks, in which I was still fasting for 36hrs three days a week, eating strict keto and had increased my exercise to a solid 6 days a week pretty consistently.
Still, it’s a bit of a surprise, and not a good one.
The one thing I have to remember is that the HbA1c is just an average. I only realised after recently joining some diabetic Facebook groups that most diabetics test their blood sugar throughout the day, and so I’m getting myself a cotinuous glucose monitor – this is a sensor that attaches to your arm and reads your blood sugar continuously (hence the name! 🤪) throughout the day and sends the results in near real time to your phone.
This will give me a much more accurate picture of what my blood sugar is actually doing to keep me from dropping my number more rapidly.
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