If you suspect you have diabetes, don’t hesitate to consult a doctor. Unlike many other diseases, diagnosing diabetes is very easy. Your doctor would evaluate you for the presence of symptoms of diabetes and also order for some simple blood tests. With this you will get to know if you have the disease or not.
Symptoms of Diabetes
The most common symptoms of diabetes include:
- Excessive thirst
- Frequent urination
- Increased appetite despite eating adequately
- Unexplained weight loss
- Tiredness
- Blurred vision
- Slow healing infections or wounds
- Frequent infection of the skin, gums, vagina or urinary bladder
- Constant itching of the body
If you have diabetes and your treatment has not started yet, you may suffer with few or all of the above listed symptoms. However, a few patients do not show any symptoms even if they are diabetic. Therefore, just because one doesn’t show symptoms does not imply they don’t have diabetes. If you are an overweight adult who is positive to one or more of the following questions, do not wait until you are 45 years old to test yourself.
A sedentary lifestyle, obesity, having a parent, brother or sister with diabetes, high blood pressure, and being a female who gave birth to a large baby or had diabetes during pregnancy may all contribute to risk factors for developing diabetes.
Diagnosis
Diabetes can be diagnosed using any of the following blood tests:
- Fasting blood glucose test
- Oral glucose tolerance test
- Random blood glucose test
Fasting blood glucose (FBG) test
Your doctor will ask you not to eat or drink anything except for water for 8 hours before the test.
FBG test is used not only to diagnose diabetes but, pre-diabetes as well. Pre-diabetes is when you have raised levels of blood glucose, yet, not high enough to qualify for the diagnosis of diabetes. This condition increases the risk of you developing diabetes, and complications such as heart problem, stroke etc.,
Understanding your FBG results
An FBG result of 99mg/dL or less means that you do not have diabetes.
A value between 100 to 125mg/dL indicates that you are in a pre-diabetic stage. Do not get alarmed if your result falls within this range. If you are overweight, a modest weight reduction and some physical activities which your doctor would prescribe will help you to delay or prevent diabetes.
If your blood glucose level of 126mg/dL or above, then, you have diabetes. Still, your doctor might repeat this test on another day to confirm the diagnosis.
Oral Glucose tolerance test (OGTT)
Fasting for 8 hours is required for this test also, as first an FBG sample will be taken. Following this, you will be given a glucose solution to drink. The solution contains 75 grams of glucose dissolved in waterix. After this, you should not eat or drink anything until the test is completed. Two hours after drinking the glucose solution, another blood sample would be withdrawn. Like FBG test, for confirmation of diabetes, your doctor will repeat the OGTT on one more occasion if the first time results are abnormal.
Understanding OGTT result
A glucose level in the blood between 140 to 199mg/dL in the second hour of the test suggests pre-diabetes. A value above 200mg/dL is considered diabetes, even if your fasting blood glucose test was normal. This is because; your body is not able to handle the sugar challenge.
With OGTT, not only diabetes and pre-diabetes, even gestational diabetes is diagnosed. However, for the diagnosis of gestational diabetes, 100 grams of glucose will be added to the solution instead of 75 grams
FBG of 95mg/dL and above or value at 2 hrs of OGTT 155mg/dL or above indicates gestational diabetes.
Random blood glucose (RBG) test
This test is less reliable than the FBG test and OGTT as the blood is tested anytime irrespective of the food intake. If your RBG test shows glucose levels 200mg/dL or above and along with that if you have symptoms of diabetes, then your doctor would do an FBG test or an OGTT test to confirm the diagnosis
Importance of Early Diagnosis Of Diabetes
Longstanding diabetes or poorly controlled diabetes causes severe complications like heart and kidney problems. It also affects the eyes, blood vessels, skin, nerves, teeth and gums. If diagnosis of diabetes is made early and treatment started without delay, then the possibility of you developing these complications is lowered. Therefore, if you are a person with increased risk of developing diabetes, it is important that you do periodic screening for diabetes, rather than wait for symptoms to occur.
