Agreed.
The instructions are usually fasting for a minimum of 8 hours. However, if my appointment is for 2 pm, it’s difficult for me to have fasted from the night before until 2 pm. Also, if I ate a big fat juicy burger and fries for dinner the night before, which is not my daily habit, but if I did it affected the results.
Do you all try to get a first morning appointment or go somewhere else for your blood draw fasting and see the doctor whenever they are available?
I work at a hospital, so I’m spoiled—if I want to, I can just do it at my job. If not, I go to the hospital my endo is at, but first thing in the morning on my way to work, when the lab is usually much quieter anyway. I usually request and do my bloodwork in advance of my endo appts (I email my doc with a list of what I want, and he usually agrees, and leaves the lab slip at the receptionist for me), so then we can discuss the results, vs going and having them order them and only having them after the appt.
Also, I always have a fasting blood test for cholesterol and it’s generally pretty stable, but once many years I had really odd (for me) numbers, and my doc at the time said not to worry about it unless they were replicated, which they weren’t. Could have been something I ate the night before or some temporary health thing or just lab error. I think replicating before using as a basis for major treatment decisions generally is good practice for many medical results—same is true for blood pressure, in that if you really want a handle on what’s going with that, you need to get many readings at different positions/times of day/activity levels, not just in the doctor’s office.
Makes a lot of sense- I did not realize that you actually negotiate with your doctor about which tests. At one point, I did feel that the doctor was testing for too many items, especially if the results were not numeric, IIRC, they were above or below some cutoff number -that’s not very informative. Good to know.
Thanks.
Here is an article:https://cardiab.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2840-12-156
and towards the end, just before Discussion/Outlook:
Lifestyle modification is recommended for the improvement of lipid profile. In diabetic patients with overt CVD, statins should be added irrespective of lipid levels [90]. Statin therapy is also recommended in diabetic patients without CVD aged > 40 years and ≥ 1 other CVD risk factor (family history of CVD, hypertension, smoking, dyslipidemia, albuminuria) [90]. In patients with lower CV risk, statin therapy should be considered if LDL cholesterol remains above 100 mg/dL [90]. In diabetic patients without overt CVD, the goal for LDL cholesterol is 100 mg/dL (2.6 mmol/L). In patients with overt CVD, a LDL cholesterol goal of 70 mg/dL (1.8 mmol/L), using a high dose of a statin, may be considered [90].
One of the studies, in Wisconsin seemed to have studied folks with very high BG’s in general : “The multivariable relative risks comparing the highest quartile of HbA1c (≥12.1%) with the lowest quartile (≤9.4%) were 2.42 (95% CI: 1.54, 3.82; p-trend = 0.0006) for all-cause mortality and 3.28 (95% CI: 1.77, 6.08; p-trend < 0.0001) for cardiovascular mortality [8].” Even the lowest quartile folks seem to have a high A1C, the cutoff is </=9.4%. Why don’t they seem to study well controlled diabetics? Maybe we can suggest a study of our community, here. Most of us are well controlled and I think our average and median A1C is possibly closer to 6 rather than 8 or 9.
as far as the gastropareses goes, my PCP is specialized in Gastrointerology.
thats why i believe his opinion as opposed to my endo’s.
and, as far as the flu shot goes, my PCP (same MD as above) believes whole-heartedly in flu shots, not just for us Ds, but for everyone…but especially for Ds.
i’ve been with my endo for over 30 years. he happens to be very good, but he is also very set in his ways and cannot for whatever reason think outside of the box. what is even weirder is that he, himself, is T1D on an insulin pump since he was dx in college. (he will never discuss this; it is simply something that i know.)
also, my D neuropathy is not at all painful; i just go completely numb…it feels like i no longer have a limb (if i get it in my lower leg/foot) i also get it in my right hand and wrist. it starts as pins and needles, but then it just goes “dead” as if the limb is not even there.
sodium free or zero calorie water, LOL.
I’m T1D for 50 years now. GP ran my cholesterol numbers and they weren’t too bad - around 100 for HDL. He thought fluvastatin could be valuable so I’ve been on those for 2 years or so.
I was able to reduce it to 100 by minimizing my how much meat, cheese and milk etc. (I’ve never enjoyed milk at all.)
After being on the Fuvostatin for 2 years my LDL is now around 70. It’s been really great for me, I like having those numbers so low.
I don’t know if there’s any side effects of such low LDL but my doc is always pleased.
During the last Covid threat (from June - August 2021 - 4th wave in my province in Canada) I was also able to lose 20 lbs/9 kilos. Had a bought of scary, horrible psoriasis at the sam time - I’m the queen of autoimmunity. Yikes! Not sure what I can do to lessen my bodies’ autoimmune defence. Guess I’ll need to play it by ear! Thanks!