My doctor wants to test me for diabetes. why does the test take 3 hours? what will they do to me? What will they use for testing and what is an acceptable range?
Answer:
You go in having fasted for 12 hours. They take a blood sample to see what your fasting blood sugar level is. It should be less than 100 ml/dl. Then you drink the lovely sweet liquid. They draw blood at 1, 2 and 3 hours. At 1 hour it should be less than 180. At 2 hours, less than 155. At 3 hours, less than 145. If any two tests are out of range, you get a positivie diagnosis for diabetes.
make a list of your questions and ask your doctor.
I have diabetes and have taken a test that lasted several hours. I believe they are going to have you drink a VERY sweet cocktail periodically and test you periodically to see how your body (blood) handles the excessive amount of sugar. Hope you do well...Diabetes sucks!
They will test you when you go in. They give you a solution to drink, wait a bit then re-test, then repeat the process. They do that to see hou much your sugar levels vary. I'm not sure what the normal range is.
If it's going to take three hours, then what your doctor is doing is an OGT (oral glucose tolerance) test. This tests not only for diabetes (which can also be tested for by a simple fasting blood sugar) but also impaired glucose tolerance, which is a prediabetic state in which you body can regulate fasting blood sugar levels well, but is starting to loose control of the level of glucose after you eat.
This test is performed first by taking a fasting glucose level (so you have to come fasted, no food for at least 8 hours prior) then you take a precisely metered amount of glucose orally (usually it's a fairly nasty tasting orange slurry concoction) and take another level at 1, 2, and 3 hours (some people take more time points than that or with different timing) after the meal had had time to go through your body. There are cutoffs at each levels, which you can look up on any health related site (they change them every so often, so make sure to get recent ones) and anything above a certain level is considered to be diabetes, however, there is a second, lower cutoff which is considered impaired glucose tolerance
They want to see how sugar effects your body. It takes time for the sugar in your body to build up and they want to see what effect and how much. This is normal. Next time your doctor says something that you are unsure of ask.
They take your blood before you eat and after you eat to see how your glucose (sugar) levels are. You glucose goes up after eating, which is normal, but how much it goes up and how long it stays up is what your doctor is looking for. As far as range it's better for your doctor to discuss this with you.Ask your doctor if he could do an AlC test instead this is one simple blood test that will give you your glucose levels for the past three months, but there my be a reason he wants to do the other test, so listen to what your doctor says. I hope this helps. Good luck.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment