My doc and I were pleased to see my latest A1c come in at 6.7– I have not had one below 7 in 20 years, that was the year I took up running and did a first half marathon. My tandem data is showing latest time in range at 75%, and my diabetes educator is committed to see me get to 80%.
It was great to share with a T2 friend who gets A1cs in the 5s (i tease her saying she’s barely diabetic) to say I was “catching down” with her.
All to show old Dr Silver at diabetes camp in the 1970s who tried the “scare” approach when he warned me I would not make it past my 20s.
@cogdog - Congrats on your A1c progress! I’ve also found sufficient motivation in showing “the powers that be” that I can do better than they thought.
Following your CGM data can provide significant motivation as well. For me, I view my CGM data every day (5 or 10 minutes) and discovered that doing so played a great role in making me want to improve the data. It had a surprising motivational subconscious effect on me.
Keep your beneficial d-data rolling. Diabetes is indeed a long game!
One mental hack that @Eric suggested I find quite helpful – before you check your cgm, make a quick prediction to yourself on where you think it will be. Then you can compare your prediction with the CGM reading. Thanks Eric!
Same thing, though somewhat later (I was in my 50s); my doc, a GP who I respected greatly and was doing all my prescriptions, said that he would not continue to treat me and would send me to an endo if my HbA1c kept above 8%. So I tried, something I hadn’t tried before
@cogdog Perhaps Dr Silver meant well, but what an approach to challenge you that way if it hadn’t worked out! Apparently not having to deal with that kind of challenge is one of the advantages to getting dx’d late in life! Hey, there may be a silver lining in that dark cloud! Congrats, @cogdog!
Thanks @TomH I’m willing to give Dr Silver benefit of doubt, he was a pioneer based in Maryland for diabetes care and he founded Camp Glyndon that helped me and hundreds of other kids.
I think this was a scare tactic and I pretty much laughed him off, and did hardly any good diabetes management as a teen and young adult. The real scare was in my 30s with the first round of retinopathy and laser surgery, and still not going on a pump until my 40s…
Yeah I am rather fortunate to be now in my 60s still here and doing okay.
