Unhelpful GP

I managed to get my latest HbA1c results from my diabetic nurse, still good at 5.4.

My GP managed to be unencouraging. The surgery phoned me up and asked me to come in for a meeting with my GP, when I turned up he immediately apologised for calling me in as it was unnecessary and some sort of confusion on behalf of reception. Looking at my results he gave me the feedback that he thought I probably had the best results and control of all the surgery's diabetic patients and suggested that we reduce the number of times I come in for testing (currently 4 times a year). As I find the HbA1c results helpful and they refuse to fund self-testing I suggested we continue with every three months. The GP then launched into a bit of a diatribe saying that patients with much worse problems than mine can't get appointments (remember they called me in for an appointment unnecessarily) and if I wanted more regular tests he would give me the forms and I could go to hospital for blood tests.

I didn't argue with him but listened patiently. I suspect that despite his rant it will not make any difference to the arrangements with the diabetic nurse. I had 3 visits last year and as it's up to me to phone and make appointments I guess there's nothing to stop me keeping up the same level of monitoring.

He offered to take me off Metformin, to which I suggested that I would try coming off Metformin if he could supply a self testing kit so I could see the effects of attempting to control my diabetes with diet alone. He wouldn't do this (a false economy in my view) and so I'm staying on 500mg/day of Metformin.

He then went on to discover that my blood cholesterol tests had not been processed, later on I received another phonecall from the surgery asking me to come in to give more blood as my cholesterol blood test had been lost; so my 1 visit for regular monitoring had now turned into 3 appointments!

My experience added to what I read on the diabetes newsgroups convinces me that the NICE guidelines encouraging the PCT to form a "team" with the patient are pointless as anytime I actually ask the surgery for support (self-testing or frequency of monitoring) they use funding as an excuse not to bother.

I eventually got my cholesterol results, my HDL is still low (0.6, should be greater than 1.5) with total cholesterol normal. So I might try moving to margarine with Omega3 added. If the GP had been a bit less of an arse I might have tried talking to him about it but I'll wait for my next appointment with the diabetic nurse in June.