fasting glucose test | Diabetes Healthy Solutions

How to test for diabetes

How to test for diabetes can occur in several different ways, the most popular is by a fasting blood glucose test that can be performed in your doctor’s office.

How to test for diabetes can be done for a variety of reasons such as if a person is expecting a baby and is experiencing signs and symptoms of diabetes or pre-diabetes then a doctor or OBGYN may request that the mother is tested for diabetes.

Other reasons that a pregnant lady could be tested for diabetes is because they are over the age of 40 and/or has a strong family history of diabetes.

How to test for diabetes can also be done through a urine sample. A fasting blood glucose test can be done by taking a urine sample to see if your glucose level falls into the category of diabetes or pre-diabetes.

If a person is diagnosed as having pre-diabetes it can often times be treated through diet and exercise. Often times by changing up a person’s diet and lowering the amount of sugar that they ingest will take care of any pre-diabetic symptoms.

If a person is diagnosed as having full blown diabetes then generally they will be asked to monitor their blood glucose level for a few days to a few weeks often times more than once a day, once in the morning fasting and once in the evening after meals have been eaten and then they will be called back into the doctors’ office for proper insulin level adjustment and medication adjustment.

How to test for diabetes is often times tested through a fasting glucose test which is performed in the doctor’s office where the patient will be required to come in fasting and then asked to drink a bottle of sugar water and then after waiting a short period of time the urine or blood will be tested for glucose levels to determine if a person is diabetic or not.

how to test for diabetes

Glucose Level after Eating

The glucose level after eating should be the chief concern of anyone with diabetes, and should be one of the most important tests associated with the disease.

In the world of medicine, the things that are considered normal are generally what are to be desired, however, upon close examination of the usual manner of establishing a fasting glucose to determine baseline blood glucose levels there is something decidedly abnormal in the test itself.

Normally the fasting blood glucose test is used to diagnose diabetes, but the manner in which the test is administered makes it abnormal when attempting to ascertain the glucose level after eating.

When a patient, or their physician thinks they may have some sort of glucose related abnormality the physician usually instructs the patient to fast from anything but water from midnight of the night before the fasting glucose test is to me administered. The patient arrives at the physician’s office and is given a solution containing a known amount of glucose to drink. The patient’s blood glucose level is then checked at intervals after the solution is taken to determine how well the body is metabolizing the glucose.

This is odd because in most cases the optimum amount of time that must pass between the last food intake is a full 8 hours, yet very few people go a full 8 hours without eating in their normal day to day life. Perhaps a better way to determine how well the body metabolizes glucose is to take the blood glucose reading around two hours after a meal. In a normal person the blood glucose level 2 hours after a meal should be no more than 140, and that normal glucose level after eating should be the target of the diabetic patient, regardless of what their “fasting” glucose level is.

Symptoms of Diabetes in Women

Symptoms of diabetes in women can be many, can varied, but it is important for every woman to be familiar with the symptoms of diabetes in women, especially if she has a family history of diabetes. In the present day, diagnoses for heart disease, high blood pressure and many forms of cancer are on the decline due to advances in medical knowledge as to what preventative measures can be taken.

Diabetes rates, on the other hand, continue to rise at an alarming rate, and though there is no cure for diabetes early diagnosis and treatment can help mitigate some of the worst of the disease’s health effects. This makes familiarity with the symptoms of diabetes in women very important knowledge.

Before any discussion of how to recognize diabetes in women can begin it is a good idea to note that some women are subject to gestational diabetes, or diabetes during pregnancy, which usually resolves itself after the child is born and the mother’s body returns to a more normal state. Type one and type two diabetes are chronic incurable, but treatable, conditions that occur with or without pregnancy.

The three classic early symptoms of diabetes in women that a woman should be on watch for are increased thirst, increased hunger, and increased urination. These symptoms manifest because the body is not correctly processing the glucose that comes from food and is needed to power the cells of the body. Along with these symptoms it is common for women who may be developing diabetes to get frequent yeast infections, extreme fatigue, weight fluctuations, and even numbness or poor circulation in the extremities.

If you or someone you know begins to develop these symptoms it is definitely time for a trip to the doctor for a fasting glucose test to ascertain whether you may be developing diabetes. The key to proper management and treatment of diabetes is early diagnosis, and this can be achieved if you are familiar with the symptoms of diabetes in women.