Are You Sure You Do Not Have Diabetes?

Your relief on being told by your physician or by a technician, that you do not have diabetes, is good news, but it could be premature to write off the future risk, especially if you are overweight for your height and sex, or if you have a family history of the disease.

Ask specifically if you could have pre-diabetes. Many people spend years in this state, and fail to stall full scale type 2 diabetes from developing. Pre-diabetes can be diagnosed from a combination of fasting and post prandial blood sugar readings, from the results of a glucose tolerance test, or from a test of glycosylated hemoglobin, which is also called HbA1c.

Your doctor can suggest diet and exercise changes which will bring your blood glucose below the pre-diabetes level, and delay type 2 diabetes if not prevent it outright.

Adults should check their diabetes, pre-diabetes, or normal glucose metabolism status, every 6 months. An annual check may suffice in some cases, and a doctor can decide if such a reduction in testing frequency is safe for your individual case. A reading which is more than a year old may no longer be relevant, and could place you at risk of a complication.

You can cheat on a diabetes test by skipping a meal or eating a very light one the evening before, or for lunch, but you will be the loser! A glucose tolerance test or an HbA1c could be more reliable if you suspect that someone may try and dodge the truth on a diabetes test!

Diabetes, detected in time, is one of the easiest jobs your doctor could have, for modern medicine can manage few other illnesses as well. However, no doctor can watch your medication, food and exercise, everyday, so your compliance with a prescription on a daily and sustained basis counts for everything in diabetes management!