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Divergent blood glucose readings
I am a 52 year old male who has never been diagnosed with Diabetes. I was in the hospital a year ago on an unrelated matter and after I was released I began going over some of my test results and found a fasting Glucose reading of 108 which concerned me.
I lost about 20 lbs, began walking 3 mi/day, severely resticted my carbs and bought a meter and began testing because of my concern over possibly being "pre-diabetic". Random readings are always in the low to mid 80s, post prandial responses are excellent peaking at ~125 at 1.5 hours post meal and back in the low to mid 80s at 2 hours post prandial pretty much regardless of the carb load I've eaten.
Curiously though my very first thing in the morning "fasting" tests are always high 90-105. I've been testing regularly over the past year+ and this scenario is pretty consistent.
My question is....Both tests are accurrate in detecting Diabetes and pre-Diabetes, how can one set of tests be so consistently normal and quite acceptable and the other high? Are these results indicative of something?
I lost about 20 lbs, began walking 3 mi/day, severely resticted my carbs and bought a meter and began testing because of my concern over possibly being "pre-diabetic". Random readings are always in the low to mid 80s, post prandial responses are excellent peaking at ~125 at 1.5 hours post meal and back in the low to mid 80s at 2 hours post prandial pretty much regardless of the carb load I've eaten.
Curiously though my very first thing in the morning "fasting" tests are always high 90-105. I've been testing regularly over the past year+ and this scenario is pretty consistent.
My question is....Both tests are accurrate in detecting Diabetes and pre-Diabetes, how can one set of tests be so consistently normal and quite acceptable and the other high? Are these results indicative of something?
No problem. First, any prandial test (fasting and after meal) captures glucose only at test time, not yesterday, two days ago, or a three weeks ago. It really doesn't tell a doctor what is going with your glucose levels at all times of the day. Home glucose meters are good to see how well one is managing their glucose levels. Having scaled results (high to low, or normal to near high or above) calls for an A1c test to see the entire picture.
An A1c test measures your glucose going back three months. Why three months? On the average, new red blood cells live three months before dieing off and getting turned into Bilirubin. Excess glucose binds to the outer wall of red cells and the A1c captures this. The A1c determines where you stand as far diabetes goes. Your results are presented in percentile (%) where some labs have the high water mark at 7%, others at 6%. If you go above your labs high range, you are diabetic - no ifs or buts. There are OTC home kits available but I don't know their degree of accuracy.
HTH.
An A1c test measures your glucose going back three months. Why three months? On the average, new red blood cells live three months before dieing off and getting turned into Bilirubin. Excess glucose binds to the outer wall of red cells and the A1c captures this. The A1c determines where you stand as far diabetes goes. Your results are presented in percentile (%) where some labs have the high water mark at 7%, others at 6%. If you go above your labs high range, you are diabetic - no ifs or buts. There are OTC home kits available but I don't know their degree of accuracy.
HTH.
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