I saw my endo a few weeks ago and he always uses the “A1C Now” to check my number, and it gives a result in a matter of minutes in his office. When mine was checked at this particular appointment, it was 6.1 which was the lowest it’s been in .. well as long as I can remember honestly. I was so proud of it.
Although, as proud as I was about this number, his reaction was to say “Well that’s almost good.” Ugh. I see people post all the time about being judged on that number.. I won’t go there in this post, but ugh nonetheless 
I know that I worked hard to get to that number, so that’s what I’m sticking with.
But. I saw my OB/GYN last week and she was doing some blood work on me and threw in an A1C into the mix … she called me this week to tell me that it was a little higher than what I’d told her it was. She said it was 7.4 — huh? How could there be that much of a difference in the span of about 2 weeks? My blood sugars were not any different, and even if they had been, 2 weeks wouldn’t make that big of an impact on a 3 month average.
So I was wondering if anyone else has seen this big of a discrepancy, and is it possible the A1C Now tests aren’t as accurate?
Your endo uses A1c Now?! I’m sorry, but those things are wildly inaccurate!!! I can’t imagine an endo’s office relying on them.
The most accurate result will always come from a blood draw (not a fingerstick based test).
Is there a way you can demand a blood draw for your A1c from the endo?
I had no idea they were that inaccurate until now …I always thought it was cool to stand there and watch it count down and give me my magic number. I was literally shocked when my other dr said what it really was. He’s been using the A1C Now for a few years now … :/ And he draws blood as well, so I wonder if he checks the A1C in the blood draw — surely if he did, he’d have seen the discrepancy?
My previous endo used some type of machine made by Bayer that gave an A1C based on a fingerstick. It took about six minutes, if I recall, and the machine made all kinds of whirring and clunking noises as I waited it to finish (Not A1C Now, but probably similar). When I switched, my new endo used blood drawn from a vein at a lab. I’m convinced that the vein/lab test is probably half a percent higher than the fingerstick test, though I don’t have a solid basis for comparison (they were months apart, but the trend seems to follow that logic).
I have experienced similar results as Scott E.
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