I had my quarterly A1C appointment this morning. I didn’t have very high expectations for it. Truth be told, I haven’t been doing much in the way of proactively managing my diabetes. I don’t log my blood sugars and I haven’t worn my Dexcom CGM in weeks, which means I’ve done very little in the way of making changes.
The reason I stopped wearing a Dexcom is because I noticed that the accuracy was starting to falter and I was irritated with all the false alarms. It was weeks before I decided to put another sensor in, and when I did, I noticed that all the CGMs I had were expired. But I still didn’t call and order new supplies because… it’s expensive? Alarms suck? I didn’t want to? All of those are probably correct.
When my endo came in and asked me what I thought my A1C was, I said, “Probably the same as last time.” I didn’t think it had gotten any worse, but it would have been a miracle if it was more than a couple tenths of a point lower. My endo looked up my last A1C and lo and behold, yep! My A1C is exactly the same as it was just a few months ago.
The good news is that I have managed to stay pretty stable, but the bad news is that my A1C isn’t really that great. I need to get back into action.
Between now and my next appointment, I feel like I need to bring my A-game back. A few months of just coasting along has been, well, relaxing as it can be in living with diabetes, but it’s not getting me where I want to go. A few things I want to change:
- Wearing my Dexcom and downloading the data at least bi-weekly.
- Trying to eat more low-carb, both for blood sugars and weight loss.
- Exercise even more consistently — shouldn’t be too hard since I’m training for a marathon.
The main thing with eating more low-carb is because while I lost 15 pounds on Victoza, my weight seems to have plateaued. It’s helped decrease my appetite and increase my insulin sensitivity but I still have a lot farther that I want to go. Working on my diet seems like the most logical place to go, because, well, that’s the area that I need the most work!
But most importantly, I just need to be a more active participant in my diabetes management. I need to pay attention to numbers, ratios, calories and carbs. The issues that pop up in diabetes aren’t going to resolve themselves, no matter how many times I tell myself that maybe it’ll be different tomorrow.
So that’s the latest news on the D-front. I’m getting ready to leave for Oregon on Friday for a friend’s wedding, visit my parents and — wait for it — TURN THIRTY.
When I started my first diabetes blog, I was about to turn 20 years old, so yes, I’m feeling terribly old right now. Where does the time go?!
Happy (early) birthday! Enjoy your trip.
Also, I appreciated the matter-of-fact tone of this post and hope to take the same mentality to my next endo appt. This is what I have to do and it can be done! etc. Thank you!
Sounds like your basals are right on, though. Just saying. I hope your 30th is a great one, and I think ten years of writing deserves some kind of award or something. Congratulations!
Happy 30th Birthday. This exact same post could have been written by me! I have an Endo visit next week and I will be thankful if I stay he same. I have had the same issues with the Dexcom but after waking up to a 400 reading, I think a restaurant mixed regular coke & diet, I slapped that bad boy back on. Weight loss is also an issue I am working on. I have 40 lbs I want to shed.