POA Doctors, how can A1C change in a month?

[A1C question]

Family history of diabetes. So even though my numbers are generally normal (will explain why I said generally) I do check my blood sugar occasionally just to be certain.

For some round about reasons I have had two blood tests in the last month that included A1C. My A1C a month ago was 5.6 today it was 6.2.

The first number makes sense in relation to my blood sugar meter numbers. 5.6 equates to an average of 114 ml/dl although even this is still high compared to my meter number averages but I am not using it that consistently. 6.2 is an average of 131. This doesn't seem to make sense. I don't use my meter a lot only 20 times in the last 3 months but they are spread out through the day the highest reading was 128 after a meal in the evening. When I go all the way back to December of 2019 when I got the meter the highest ever reading was 145 and I distinctly remember checking between and hour and 90 minutes after eating ice cream (something I rarely do) just to see what it would do to my BS.

So the reason I say generally above is my fasting blood sugar in the morning tends to be high I don't know if it dawn phenomenon or similar but since I got the meter my average BS fasting in the morning is 108 my midday before meal average is 91 my evening before meal is 96.

Today I took my BS before I left for the blood draw it was 103 at the blood draw was 109 probably within the margin of error, right before lunch about 3 hours after breakfast it was 97 so the current numbers seem to mesh with my averages.

 

[A1C question]

Should add the after meal meter averages. Midday 105 evening 116. So even if the meter is off by a few points something doesn't seem right.

 

[steingar]

Lots of possibilities. False reading. Condition going downhill. Time for new or more meds. Had the wrong thing to eat the day before. Sleep cycle off. Your home machine is busted. Prayed to the wrong Gods.

 

[bflynn]

A1C measures the adherence of glucose to red blood cells, which live 3 months. The test can be sensitive to changes that are only a month long because it's averaging what's happened over those 3 months. A single day won't really affect the A1C, but assuming the test is accurate, it would indicate a much higher than normal level of blood glucose over the past month, probably more in the 7 range to have pushed it up 0.6 in a month. Or it could be a bad test. Could be expired testing strips too, reading low. Low battery?

Medically speaking, there are lots of possibilities but the most common can just be a bad diet. If you've been splurging a bit, especially high carb / high sugar foods, you can overwhelm your body's capability to process that much sugar. Anything else reading lo/high on your blood lipids?

If I recall the organ functions correctly, there are other things that could be going on such as liver or pancreas trouble, but they're not very common. Also, these would be constant enough to show up on a BG check.

If that's doesn't describe you, ask your doctor about it, not SPOTI (some pilots on the internet). I'd say bad test, but verify with a second test, you can actually get home tests, but they're expensive. If high, talk to your doctor.

 

[bbchien]

Your glucose is 130 most of the night. Move your carbs around or take a 40 minute “power walk” after supper!