My ongoing type 2 diabetes recovery

I blogged last year about how I had a diabetes relapse and was making a recovery. I'm really pleased that at my follow up check up today, my recovery from type 2 diabetes was well established. 

My HbA1c - the measure of blood glucose over time that shows if you have diabetes - was down to 38. (It needs to be below 42.) 

At the end of April 2025, my HbA1c was 54, so I have dropped it by 16 points in 13 months. The nice practice nurse, Fiona, printed out my graph for me. Check it out:

This graph doesn't have the very first HbA1c result that got me sent to hospital way back in January 2015. But it wouldn't fit on this graph anyway because my score then was 91. (Strangely that first result doesn't seem to be on the system at all, which might explain why I keep having to tell my diagnosis story every time I see a different healthcare professional.)

Anyway, this is the lowest my HbA1c has been since 2020. I'm not saying the pandemic is to blame, but the shift to home working didn't help my waistline much. Losing 11 kg since April last year is what helped me drop my diabetes score. (I recommend canvassing - my foot mileage in election week was quite high!) 

I feel I can now safely say I have reversed my diabetes twice. The challenge will be keeping it this way. That's why I like to refer to it as Recovery. Every day I have to make the conscious decision to make choices that are better for me - what to eat and when to exercise. 

Some days are easier days to make that positive choice to stay diabetes-free. But on the hard days I now have a graph to remind me what's possible.