igorant person here

[sharon c]

sorry but i have noticed in quite a few posts that people are trying to get their A1c down, i am new to all this and my 8yr old is too, what are A1c and what level should they be. My daughters test are around 8mml. is this what you mean.??????


Would appreciate any advice about diabetes management as i know noone with this problem, and those that i see at the clinic are all type 2 and on pills so that does not help, i don't like to take up too much of the specialists time as i know he is busy.

Can you all help.

sharon c

[HeatherP]

Hello and welcome Sharon. In terms of regular daily testing people outside the U.S. measure b/g levels differently that we do here. For an approx. equivalent you would use 18 and your multiplier/divisor (a b/g of 8 for you x 18 = 144 here in America, and when you see and American number of 120 you would divide by 18 = 6.6mml) The A1c is a different test altogether - it's sort of an average of the previous 3 months of b/g levels, generally the desired number is under 7%.

This is a really great community so you'll find lots of information and friendly people. Don't ever be afraid or embarrased to ask a question - no such thing as a dumb one!

Take care,
Heather

[BriOnH]

Here is a good decription in lamen about what an HBA1C test is and the corresponding glucose levels. Every site I go to seems to be a little bit different in their prediction of HBA1C percentage vs average and mean glucose levels over 10 weeks, but the difference is usually pretty small, so its almost negligable.

http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/d_0n_040.htm

Hope this helps!

[sharon c]

thanks guys.

[am1977]

Welcome Sharon...

Hey, you are not ignorant. When we all start out with this disease, we basically have to start from none to little knowledge of diabetes and build up from there. As you go on, you will learn- trust me on that one ;).

In the mean time, do what you can to read up on the subject. You might want to ask your daughter's doctor about some books to read about Diabetes. Also, you might also want to consider seeing a Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) if you haven't already. Lastly, the www is full of info on this subject. A word of warning, do NOT believe everything you read, but there are reliable sources of information to be found. You might want to check out American Diabetes Associationn's website @ www.diabetes.org.

Good luck and please feel free to visit anytime :ciao: