3 months, and I won’t make that mistake again.
Wait, you get a blood draw every 3 months? I guess the pediatric endo’s are nicer, they use the in-office A1c machine and only draw blood once per year.
My endo was making me get a blood draw every 2 months for a while, It finally just got extended to every 3 months for good behavior
I am hoping when I finally get situated somewhere else with a new endo, they will see my string of well-controlled A1cs and only want to see me twice a year
@glitzabetes I hope you get there. I too am on the 2.to.3. Month plan. I have graduated twice to 6 month intervals and blew it every time. Sigh.
Yeah I got knocked back to every three months. It’s like detention.
I get every 3 months from endo. But have weekly blood draws for INR’s for my Vascular Surgeon. I just call and they add a whole blood glucose test for me. I did a contour next and contour next link and old accu-check last month. The contour next was within, oops dont remember #'s but it was close followed by contour next link an accu-check was way off by over like 40 points.
I believe it was whole blood 89
Next 86
Next link 81
Accu-check 140
I’m curious, what criteria is used to set time for followup sooner? I’ve been doing every 6 months.
I’d guess either screwing up currently or having a solid history of screwing up??
I was on the 4 week schedule there for a while. That was annoying and completely unproductive.
I can speak for myself… Solidly screwing up w/ occasional help from my Endo. I have issues with some meds (I always get the obscure weird side effects to meds that don’t affect most people) and it took my Endo a while to actually believe me. Plus I ran high bgs (+200) daily before getting a cgm because I absolutely can not afford 1 more hypo crash that puts me in the ER. In the eventuality of another ER hypo visit, my life will take a paradigm shift for the worst.
I think my current endo did it due to my unhappiness with my A1C, my weird injection site welts and my issues with Humalog.
Anytime they’ve lost confidence in me having everything on lock down, I’m told to come back sooner. I was on the 6 month plan for years. Now I’m on the 3 month plan and have been for a while.
But does it matter that I’ve never had confidence in him, either? I mean…to be fair…that road runs both ways.
I think what I really meant to ask, was if more frequent visits helped. Since joining DOCs, I don’t ask my endo for much, other than to make sure I get my RX on time, approvals for dme, etc.
“Completely unproductive” sums it up.
But if frequent appt are helpful, thats great.
I can’t speak to an individual case, but there are multiple peer reviewed studies that show patients have better outcomes with more frequent healthcare interactions. The guidelines i.e. every quarter or 6 months are for the average patient. Some will benefit by more frequent visits and others not so much.
I am one of those people. Like a 2 to 3.month re-affirmation that things are good/need work/or? As an aside, for me TCOYD serves the same purpose
I get zero benefit from meeting every 3 months (with my endo) as opposed to every 6 months. And it costs me valuable sick time as a working mom.
I don’t get my A1C result until two weeks after the appointment…so that’s not covered in the appointment. My endo doesn’t talk about my health. I take care of myself myself.
For me: waste of time other than staying on the nurse’s good side for prescription purposes.
@T1Allison sorry that is your experience. Mine is the complete opposite, and I feel very fortunate.
I miss my retired endo’s. They were both nice and sort of helpful.
In fairness to my current endo, I had asked my retiring endo for which other endo in the practice would be the least likely to micromanage me. I suppose I got what I asked for. I just can’t handle another endo who freaks out on me for bolusing extra for potatoes. I don’t do well w liability adverse psychos.
I would totally agree that this applies to general public diabetics, and more visits for newly diagnosed. I just hope there aren’t endo that require it for those that don’t need it, just to incease their business, and they know insurance will reimburse.
I have a question for the 3 month-ers. Are your scripts written for only 3 months? If you get a script written for a year, then go see them in a year.
The only thing that makes you go back to see them is needing a new script. I get my stuff written for a year, and that solves the problem.
I agree with you now, but I used to think seeing the endo was diabetes management. Everything that changed with my status, or everything that was changed in order to take care of it, happened within those walls. The only reason it was the right thing at the time was because it meant getting an a1c, a very loose review of my settings, a very loose review of my lifestyle, a plan of care regarding eyes, blood work, etc, and an earful. I don’t think it was ever going to be enough to get me where I needed to be with my disease, but it was better than nothing.
I feel differently now. My endo mentioned “3 or 4 months” the other day as I walked out the door, and the only reason I chose to return in 3 was because I wanted to do another lab draw comparison. She promised me she would order it next time… after seeing how sad I was that there was no value.
Yes, my endo writes all my scripts to last exactly the number of refills till my next appointment + 1 so I really am pretty screwed if I don’t obey his timeline