At my last endo appointment, I already knew that my A1C was going to be high. How did I know this? My Dexcom Clarity report told me what my 90 day average was.
Knowing this information going into the appointment, I knew it was going to be a topic of discussion, so instead of trying to delay that discussion or hide it, I started the appointment off with it. I simply said, “just a heads up, my A1C is going to come in as the highest since my diagnosis and here’s why..”
I then when on to list 3-4 reasons as to why I knew it was.
- Thanksgiving was more like a Thanksgiving week, so that was 7 days of high BGs.
- Christmas was closer to about a 2 week trip and party so that was another 14 days of out of control BGs.
- The time in-between Thanksgiving and Christmas felt like a holiday the entire time, so there were a lot of highs during that timeframe as well.
These were not excuses, these were simply explanations as to why I knew it was going to be high. I didn’t come into the appointment saying, “I tried my best”, because I have a be true to myself policy.
I know that I didn’t try my best. In fact, I tried very little. I didn’t count a single carb in those 90 days (I rarely do count carbs, but I can guestimate). I just took a bunch of insulin, ate a bunch of food and then corrected and corrected more and because of that, the insulin in my body was like water.
So, what was my A1c?
According to Dexcom Clarity reports, I had worn my CGM for 78 out of 90 days. So, I was missing 12 days of data. But the 90 day average was about 224. I use the Accu-Chek A1C Calculator to figure out what the A1C equivalent is to a 90 day CGM average.
According to that, my A1C was going to be 9.46.
I did an in-office A1C test because I didn’t have any labs scheduled for this exact appointment.
The result came back at 8.9.
So, those 12 days I had the CGM off must have been some better days of BG to help lower it from the 90 day average Dexcom had.
8.9
That’s the goal to beat next time. This should be a much easier goal than before since it was so high.
My goal for next appointment is below 7.0.
With my new insulin delivery methods of utilizing both my Omnipod and Tresiba as my basal insulin, I feel like I can easily do this.
My A1C’s almost always beats the speculation A1C that I figure at home. (A good thing). As a buddy of mine once said A1C’s are not good or bad, unless they are yours, then they matter 15 times more. It is good to never put too much into any A1C- the benchmark is set.