A1C

Like a growing (no pun intended) number of my fellow Americans, I have to monitor my glucose levels. My current official diagnosis and reason for monitoring is Type 2 Diabetes. (In previous generations, was known as “got sugar.”) I am still in the process of trying to master the art of being satisfied with meals whose volume is measured with various parts of my hand. Thus my ongoing, yet to be conquered, challenge.







Manufacturers are quite generous with their brand of Diabetic glucose monitoring devices—in fact many are free with a coupon or an accommodatingly pleasant phone call. This industry reminds me of the ink jet printer business where the basic printer prices have plummeted to virtually “nothing.” There is a business reason for this madness. The ongoing business of supplying the ink products provides a highly lucrative, seemingly perpetual, profit stream and is the root reason for this marketing strategy. The same principle applies to the glucose monitoring (or diabetic) meters and their proprietary disposable test strips. For someone with no insurance, the costs of the strips, which are often used multiple times a day, are horrendous.






As many of you have surmised, I can be quite cheap frugal especially with things that don’t show any visible return on investment. My Diabetic test strips fall into that category. Perhaps it’s that I’m frugal or perhaps it’s that the word “test” is involved that prompt me to adapt an alarmingly selective testing pattern. (I got over the pricking to get my blood sample issue long ago.) I often only test when “I’ve been a good boy” and when I think the results will be acceptable within my Doctor’s recommended guidelines. I have yet to test after savoring a ravishing slice of my wife’s German chocolate cake. It is in fact is made with no shortening (apple sauce) or sugar (sweetener) and may be well within guidelines. To my twisted way of thinking it makes no sense to waste a test strip for something that probably may yield less than “passing” results. I only invest in potentially “good results” so that my meter will prove that I am a “good boy” when the Doctor reads my selective recorded history.






Somehow the medical institution has caught on to my self-righteous testing patterns. (I think the profit hungry test strip manufacturers tattled on me.) I am now required to account for my “hidden sins” through a blood sample collected by an impartial phlebotomist. This simple periodic validating blood sample is called the A1C test and is “the real thing.” The Doctor may glance at my selective “good boy” meter readings to see patterns, but he really only embraces this impartial long term A1C result for his official diagnosis.






I am starting to finally realize that the meter testing program is primarily for my own frequent monitoring, analysis, and basis for correction. No one is really monitoring whether I had 16% butterfat, sugar laden, and farm-made ice cream on Sunday. However if I had tested myself, it probably would have show it wasn’t the best choice and that a corrective modified diet Monday would be prudent.






I am increasingly aware of my tendencies to skew my own criteria in areas even more important than my Diabetic test strips. Frequent “professional quality” feedback (given with hope that I’ll make resulting corrections) is mine for the asking. I still can’t resist on my own trying to make myself “look like a good boy” that “is up to snuff” and doesn’t require any special corrective action. Thus, I need frequent objective monitoring that I can’t manipulate or ignore. It’s very crucial because someday I am going to be given a final “pass/fail A1C evaluation” that is not based on my criteria or self-serving analysis. The daily opportunities to be monitored and corrected are still something I resist but oh, so necessary. To pilfer a well known slogan; “It doesn’t cost, it pays.”