Pre-diabetes is where your blood sugar test (HbA1c) shows you are at risk of developing diabetes in the future.
If the blood test result is 41 or below, it is normal. If the result is 48 or above, it is likely diabetes. If your result is 42 to 47 it means you are in the grey area, between 'normal' and 'diabetes'. This area is called ‘at risk of diabetes’ or ‘pre-diabetes’.
Knowing you are at risk of becoming diabetic lets you choose to make changes to your lifestyle and reduce your risk of developing diabetes. For more information about why pre-diabetes is important, and how to help yourself, here are two excellent resources.
Firstly, you can visit www.patient.co.uk
Secondly a booklet that has been written by a world-leading diabetes team in Leicester.
Leicester Diabetes Centre
Download the University of Leicester Diabetes Centre Information booklet [EXTERNAL PDF LINK]
Also, to help you make the changes to your lifestyle you can contact the excellent Be Well Walsall team:
Tel: 01922 444044
Website: bww.maximusuk.co.uk
We can refer you to an education programme to prevent you becoming diabetic. Ask us to be referred.
You will need an annual blood test to monitor how well you are managing your blood sugar levels. If the blood test is still outside the diabetic range (HbA1c is 47 or below), then you simply need to continue making the above lifestyle changes. We will not need to contact you, but you can check your results 2 weeks after the blood test using your online access (please ask reception staff for details). However, if your blood test goes into the diabetic range, then the diabetic team would contact you.
We do offer a medication called metformin which can help reduce the chance of delveloping diabetes. More information is at this link, Pre-diabetes metformin.
Good luck with the changes you will make to turn things around.