Diagnosis of Diabetes

We have seen the types and symptoms of diabetes in the previous post. Now let us see diagnoses of diabetes. If you find any symptoms of diabetes as mentioned in the previous post about the Types and Symptoms of diabetes , immediately you have to fix an appointment with your doctor for diagnoses. He will advise you to undergo some tests to find out whether you are affected by diabetes.

Diabetes can often detected by carrying out a urine test to find out whether excess glucose is present. This is normally followed by a blood test which measure blood glucose levels and can confirm if the cause of symptoms is diabetes. We have already known the types of diabetes. Now let us go for various tests one by one.

HbA1c-Glycated Haemoglobin test: This blood test will indicate the average blood sugar levels for the past three months. It measures percentage of blood sugar attached to haemoglobin. The higher the blood sugar levels, more sugar is combined with haemoglobin.

If the result is between 5.7 and 6.4 percentage, it is considered pre-diabetes. Normal level is below 5.7 percentage.If you are diabetic patient then you have to take this HbA1c test for every three or four months without fail .This is apart from your routine urine and blood tests. Generally following are indications for the blood sugar control in case of diabetic patients. If it shows

    Between 6.01----7.0 % is taken as good control

                 7.1 -----8.0 % is taken as fair control

                 8.1------10.0 % is taken as poor control

                 More than 10 % is unsatisfactory.

RANDOM blood sugar test (RBS): Here blood sample will be collected at a random time. If random test shows sugar level of 200 mg/dl or higher it can indicate diabetes, especially considering the presence of other diabetic symptoms.

FASTING blood sugar test (FBS): A blood sample is collected after an overnight fast. A fasting blood sugar level if it is less than 100 mg/dl is considered normal level. If it is 100 to 125 mg/dl is considered pre-diabetes level. It is often the first test done to check for pre-diabetes and measuring glucose levels for diabetes during treatment.

Postprandial glucose test (PP): It is a blood glucose test that determines the amount of a type of sugar called glucose in the blood after meal. Glucose comes from carbohydrate foods. It is a main source of energy used by the body. A 2 hour postprandial blood glucose test measures blood glucose exactly 2 hours after eating a meal timed from the start of meal. This serves as a test whether a person may have diabetes or whether a person who has diabetes is successfully controlling his blood sugar.  Here the important point is a person who is suffering from diabetes should take his medicines as prescribed by his Doctor that is before or after food.

Oral glucose tolerance test (GTT):  For this test one has to fast overnight and the fasting blood sugar level is measured. Then drink a sugar liquid and blood sugar levels are tested periodically for the next two hours. Here blood sugar levels less than 140 mg/dl is considered normal. More than 200 after two hours indicate diabetes. Please note that sugar levels noted here may vary from lab to lab as per the methods used for testing.

For TYPE I diabetes (Insulin dependent) Urine will be tested to look for the presence of by product produced when muscle and fat tissue are used for energy when body does not have enough Insulin to use the available glucose.

Friends, I hope I have given here the full details of the tests for diabetes. If you know anything more please free to add here so that others may have more information. Your comments are welcome.