To wish my GP practice had told me about this upward trend earlier?

If you're worried about cholesterol it's well worth reading 'the great cholesterol con' by dr malcolm kendrick so that you are fully informed before you make any decisions.

This is a great result, congratulations! How much legumerie (?!) do you eat each day?

Why don't you just get the app?

Kidding, sorry 😂

Seriously OP, this is frustrating. I has some medication (infused over a week in hospital) which required me to have monthly blood tests for 5 years after and although it was sometimes met with a lot of objections, I felt I needed the results to reassure myself of what was going on. I'm not blaming you, it's not unreasonable to think this trend would have been flagged but my personal experience is that you can't rely on the NHS to necessarily do everything it should. You can't turn back time so I would just focus on doing what you need to going forward. Good luck.

I don’t think the GPs have time to look at everyone’s test results other than making sure they are in the normal range and nothing has been flagged. I have had results many times when the receptionist has told me they were normal, however when I have checked myself of the app or Drs website I can clearly see that some are creeping up and just sitting under the radar.

Health is devolved in Scotland to ensure that you get a better service. Apparently.

You know now so can make some changes, but it really doesn't sound significant if it's just been creeping up. You can try some dietary changes over the next 6-12 months or try medication, but at such an early stage it really makes very little difference to whether you started a couple of years ago or not. It may be worth getting your GP to print a full copy of all your blood test results however, as if your lifestyle is healthy there could be an underlying cause to consider. You may want to consider stopping birth control pills, or advocating for more kidney or thyroid tests.

I'm sorry you've had this shock, best wishes to you for the future.

My friend is 75 and had no idea that her high blood pressure could affect her kidneys. She had a kidney 'stone' which was causing her great pain and she went in for surgery - and was told that she had stage 3 kidney disease. Apparently her kidneys are now full of tiny stones - which could meld together to become another large one. Unfortunately the dietician/nutritionist? was unavailable before discharge, and she didn't really understand what she could or couldn't eat. I managed to get her a renal diet printed off from the web, and then a book from Amazon but she was frightened and ended up just eating salads.

Primary care medic here.
We have hundreds of blood tests to check and report on daily.
If its within normal limits.... that's it. Its normal. Until its not normal... at which point you will be notified.
We have no time to be looking backwards and checking trends when things are within normal limits.
If you want to take ownership of your health then you are entitled to have your blood results printed out for you to monitor the trend.
(PS sometimes things are out of range but have no clinical significance.... which is why what you perceive to be abnormal is marked otherwise)

I think this highlights the difference in standards of care by doctors surgery. My old surgery before I moved house automatically provided a printout that I could either go in and collect when the results were ready or I would receive through the post a week or so later. The numbers on the sheet meant absolutely nothing to me and I would go by the doctor saying everything is fine, but as someone regularly tested this would have benefitted you.

I can understand your frustration, OP, but as a GP myself I can say hand on heart there just isn’t time in the day to review every patient’s normal-range blood results and compare them with previous tests. It would be a massive increase in workload, which is already unsustainable in most practices.

I’m in ROI where GP services are somewhat less strained than in the UK; I still go into work for several (unpaid) hours every weekend just to keep on top of paperwork. There is zero capacity for extra workload in the current system.

If you want straight forward advice on dealing with the pre diabetes take a look at the Public Health Collaboration website or YouTube channel. The PHC is a UK based charity with the goal of saving the NHS, sometimes from itself. They put all the conference speakers and talks on YOuTube, and the talks by Dr Unwin, a UK GP, are really informative.

Best of luck and best wishes.

But they were normal. Why would they inform you there was a problem when there wasnt one before now

Ive never had this

Yes, we should all get medical degrees to make sure that we're fully informed, lord knows why the HEALTH SERVICE would be useful.

I've had helpful advice from some professionals who've scanned my previous records.

When I was pregnant, I was always retested for BP, first result would be just over the referral threshold, the second just under. Gave me duff advice based on the lower reading. Developed into pre-eclampsia.

Depending on individuals to interpret results will just widen health inequalities.

Well you dont accept that, I dont, I ask for it to be emailed and now I have the NHS app (although many test results and outcomes are often missing so its not foolproof), if the results are on there I check them with a fine tooth comb and compare them with advice on Dr Google.

If they're not on the app I aks them to email it to me

Honestly making more dietary changes probably wouldn’t make much difference at all. If everything was still in normal range then no action was needed.

OP are you menopausal, at this wonderful time in life all these blood tests also go to crap as our Eostrogen declines. Lucky us.

No, not unreasonable at all. It's disturbing that the practice can't distinguish between thresholds to initiate treatment and results that might indicate a need for lifestyle changes. Just because they don't need to do anything, that doesn't necessarily mean you don't.
I have all my test results on the NHS app. I'd assumed this was the same for everyone, but my brother (who has a serious life-limiting condition) doesn't have results on his.
I know there's a risk of people over-reacting to results that aren't really concerning, but we're never going to move from a National Illness Service (what we have now) to a National Health Service (which we've never had) unless patients are informed and involved.

Think it depends on your PCT.

Also as other have said even on the NHS app for those that have it not all test results are listed in detail

Just to flag this up, you need to ask your GP for full access to your record. Just drop them an email. I now have all test results, some from several years back, and all the historical trends. Its really good, as OP says, for monitoring trends.

I was also pissed off as it showed that my kidneys have been pretty crap for a while, function decreasing for years in fact, and no-one flagged it up until it went below a certain number, and I'm suddenly in CKD territory..... well thanks.

@polarbandWhen you set up the NHS app, you have to ask your surgery to give you access to all test results, letters etc. But I’ve only had the app for the last five years or so, and before then, I always contacted the surgery to get my results without fail. Some of the admin staff weren’t helpful, but they always gave me the information I wanted in the end.