29 December, 2008

Blood sugar testing - What every diabetic should know – The importance of an HbA1C test

In my last article I talked about how to learn the correct way to test your blood sugar levels at home. After reading that you now know how to check your sugar levels correctly.

Let me tell you about the HbA1c blood test.

How often should this test be done?
This test is usually done once in 3 months for diabetics

What is the use of doing this test?
It tells your doctor and you the average blood sugar level during the past three months.

One of my patients had asked me this question. “Why should I do this test? I check my blood sugar every week.”
This was my answer: it is not enough to know the fasting blood sugar and post Prandial blood sugar levels because what I have seen among my patients is that just before the blood test for few days they eat correctly and when the test comes the level is almost normal. But when I do this test for them it shows a high value. This means that most of the “other” time my patient has high blood sugar levels.
Similarly your doctor and you need to know if this is what happens in your case and your treatment needs to change depending on such a result, or tomorrow a diabetes complication could occur and both your doctor and you will wonder why this happened to you.

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