41

It was about a year ago when I first learnt about a special blood test - the HBA1c blood test. It is specifically used with regard to diabetes and is generally given to people with diabetes and those who are at risk of slipping into that unhappy category.

Apparently the "HB" part of the name has nothing to do with lead pencils. It stands for haemoglobin. The second part of the name "A1c" relates to glucose. The test measures how much glucose is attached to one's red blood cells that of course contain haemoglobin. This vital substance carries oxygen around one's body and high levels of glucose will cause impairment in the process.

There is a scoring system. A healthy bloodstream that is not in any immediate danger of slipping into the diabetic zone will have an HBA1c score of  under 42 millimoles per mole. Anyone who records a score of between 42 and 47 is in the pre-diabetic category and those with a score of 48 or over are classed as Type 2 diabetics.

A year ago my score was hovering around 47/48. I was on the edge of becoming a card-carrying member of the Type 2 brigade. That was something I really did not want and so, without going crazy about it, I did three things. Firstly, I stopped adding sugar to hot drinks. Secondly, I greatly reduced my alcohol consumption. Thirdly, partly with the aid of weight loss reduction jabs, I shed a stone in weight (14 pounds) - limiting my daily intake of calories and learning to be more watchful about what I eat.

And now the good news is that my HBA1c score is down to 41! My doctor told me this at today's hypertension focused appointment. Jokingly, I told him I would celebrate with a few pints at my local tonight. I was delighted but when on such a health journey one should guard against complacency. It would be easy  for the score to rise again - back to the threshold of full-blown diabetes. 

We are going to Egypt in early March for a week long Nile cruise and our travel insurer needed clarity about my health before providing a quote. That's why I made a point of asking Dr Dale about my latest HBA1c score and when questioned he said, "No you are not diabetic and you are not pre-diabetic any more. You are in the normal range."

I have always wondered what it is like to be normal.



from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/s1Mrj9i

تعليقات

إرسال تعليق

المشاركات الشائعة من هذه المدونة

Easter

صورة
Stewart prepared a special Easter Sunday dinner. The Lamb of God was on the menu with roasted potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, leeks, carrots, parsnips and peas. For dessert, Shirley had followed the vegan sticky toffee pudding recipe in the first "Bosh!" cook book  and all was good. Earlier there had been an Easter egg hunt for the little ones and then we all went off to a Sheffield museum that I had not visited in many years - The Emergency Services Museum at West Bar. Greatly improved and still run by volunteers, it was a perfect excursion for all of us and we finished up in the museum's little cafe enjoying a light lunch. We had seen police cars, ambulances, fire engines and even a redundant lifeboat called "City of Sheffield". We all enjoyed the visit. As you might imagine, I will be coming back to this museum in a future post. On the way there,  the roads had been blocked off near Sheffield Children's Hospital as 750 motorcyclists arrived at Weston P...
Read more »

Today

صورة
The view from Simon's back yard. It takes an hour and a half to travel to the village where I was born and raised. Today, Shirley came with me and saw my brother Simon for the first time since August 2019. As a nurse for more than forty years, she was not daunted by his changed appearance. With the cancer and everything he has become a bag of bones. So painfully thin - like a malnourished prisoner working on the Burma railway under Japanese supervision.  Wasting away. We stayed all afternoon.  Shirley had his washing machine on and we changed his bedding. I had bought a new fitted sheet, duvet cover and pillowcases from Tesco. Shirley said that his old bedding was "disgusting".  We brought tins of mushroom soup and cans of "Fanta" and "Coke" and some pots of chocolate mousse plus a couple of pints of milk. They were received with zero gratitude. In fact, he insisted that six cans of soup was far too many. I encouraged him to have a bath while...
Read more »