Written By: Bhavyajyoti Chilukoti | Updated : November 20, 2017 12:40 PM IST
When your doctor tells you to get a blood test done for diabetes, what do you do? Go to a nearby lab, show them the prescription, give blood, get reports and show the reports back to the doctor. Isn't this the procedure that we all follow (have been following for years)? Did you doctor specify what method of blood glucose testing you need to undergo? Have you ever asked your doctor about the ideal test or right test to diagnose diabetes? The next time a doctor recommends your family or freidns to undergo a blood test for diabetes, you need to keep few things in mind. Also read why you DO NOT have to wait for diabetes symptoms to appear.
Dr Pradeep Gadge, Diabetologist, Shreya Diabetes Centre, Mumbai says that theideal test to detect diabetes is oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). But unfortunately, it is not always feasible because the test is expensive and becomes cumbersome. This is because, for the test, you are either injected with glucose or fed with glucose followed by monitoring of blood glucose level every 30 minutes or every one hour. Ideally, the most commonly used test to detect diabetes in our country is fasting blood glucose or post-lunch blood glucose testing. Here are common tests for diabetes you should know about.
Another important thing when it comes to diagnosis of diabetes is to combine multiple reports together and reach a diagnosis. For example, if a patient's fasting blood glucose level is more than 126 mg/dl, then he may have diabetes. If the post-lunch blood glucose reading is more than 200 mg/dl or if the random blood sugar is more than 200 mg/dl or HbA1c reading is more than 6.4, then the patient might be suffering from diabetes. So if a patient fits into any of these three criteria, then preferably try to check the patient once more before labelling him as a diabetic. This is what every doctor should be done when it comes to diagnosing diabetes. Here's how to read blood glucose tests.
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