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Home Glucose tolerance test

S

stoomc

Active Member
Messages
28
Hi all,

I've been having a shot of my partners monitor for the past few mornings and everything is fine, as far as fasting blood sugars go
.
However, being the thorough person I am I would like to do a glucose tolerance test as I understand that that is the true test; on a side note, I'm confused why Drs etc. dont just do the GTT as standard - isnt most peoples blood sugar lower in the morning after a fast? Sorry if I picked this up wrong.

So, I dont want to go to the Dr and just ask for one of these tests (of course) and was wondering how I could go about testing it at home?
I understand that this will not be entirely accurate, but I would like to get a general idea.

Anyhow I'm seeing different amount of grams of carbs and timings on the internet.
50 or 75g?
1 or 2 hours?

Also I see on some sites about what they recommend eating can I use a fizzy drink or 2 to get my grams of carbs instead?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
 
No clue....but my husband had one at his doctors after a blood test showed higher than normal sugar. He had to fast from 10pm the night before then had to drink a pint of Lucozade straight from the fridge and then wait 2 hours, not peeing during that time....a urine strip test was done and he was fine. Of course don't take this as gospel or proven...it is just what he had at his gp's for the GTT
 
The HbA1c test has generally replaced the OGGT as the OGTT is rather labour intensive. Rather than do an OGTT, just measure your blood glucose an hour and 2 hours after a carby meal - pasta or lots of bread.
 
NoCrbs4Me said:
The HbA1c test has generally replaced the OGGT as the OGTT is rather labour intensive. Rather than do an OGTT, just measure your blood glucose an hour and 2 hours after a carby meal - pasta or lots of bread.
Click to expand...
Was thinking along those lines, however I was wonderig if it could be done with drinks intead of food.

Thanks!
 
It isn't clear if you are diabetic or just curious?.....if you want to be really ''thorough'' perhaps a well person check up at your doctors would be the way to go ....that way you would get definate answers instead of what could be totally incorrect ones.
 
Gezzabelle said:
It isn't clear if you are diabetic or just curious?.....if you want to be really ''thorough'' perhaps a well person check up at your doctors would be the way to go ....that way you would get definate answers instead of what could be totally incorrect ones.
Click to expand...
I went for a health check up late last year and got my bloods taken, blood pressure etc. I had to phone a week or 2 later regarding the bloods and everything was fine.
However, I'm not sure if they check for diabetes.

I understand that my home check will not be as accurate, however just to have a basic check at least will put my mind at rest.
I have been know to be a hypochondriac at times and dont want to waste anyones time.
I have zero symptoms and my health, as I said above is fine.

Surely I would get a good idea on the check I'm attempting will tell me if my sugars are in the danger zone and then I can take it from there.

Thnanks :)
 
stoomc said:
I went for a health check up late last year and got my bloods taken, blood pressure etc. I had to phone a week or 2 later regarding the bloods and everything was fine.
However, I'm not sure if they check for diabetes.

I understand that my home check will not be as accurate, however just to have a basic check at least will put my mind at rest.
I have been know to be a hypochondriac at times and dont want to waste anyones time.
I have zero symptoms and my health, as I said above is fine.

Surely I would get a good idea on the check I'm attempting will tell me if my sugars are in the danger zone and then I can take it from there.

Thnanks :)
Click to expand...
Appreciate where you are coming from. I had no symptoms really when I got my routine blood checks but ended up showing too much sugar. The health check blood test usually covers HbA1c check for glucose so all should be okay for you. If you want to check your levels and reactions to food I would personally be more inclined to check BG levels before eating a meal and then one hour and two hours after....that would tell you how much your bg levels have gone up and give an indication if it is within the normal range for a non diabetic :)
 
Gezzabelle said:
Appreciate where you are coming from. I had no symptoms really when I got my routine blood checks but ended up showing too much sugar. The health check blood test usually covers HbA1c check for glucose so all should be okay for you. If you want to check your levels and reactions to food I would personally be more inclined to check BG levels before eating a meal and then one hour and two hours after....that would tell you how much your bg levels have gone up and give an indication if it is within the normal range for a non diabetic :)
Click to expand...
It's shocking really, Drs/ nurses never seem to tell you what on earth is going on. I just remember that I had to phone at a later date to find out my bloods. I rang them and they said all was fine. "Oh, OK then" lol!
I had a look on the web and couldnt find anything conclusive if blood sugars were checked. It's good that it was screened on your one though. How would you have known otherwise!?
 
NoCrbs4Me said:
The HbA1c test has generally replaced the OGGT as the OGTT is rather labour intensive. Rather than do an OGTT, just measure your blood glucose an hour and 2 hours after a carby meal - pasta or lots of bread.
Click to expand...
when I had mine at the hospital it was turn up fasted have HCA take bloods, administer glucose, get ignored for 2 hrs, get HCA take bloods again, get endo to review result 3 months later! As expected, it told me nothing, as my BG is back down well before HR 2:rolleyes:
They didn't even bother to tel me to "Carb Up" for a few weeks beforehand:mad:
 
I may be missing something here ... But if your wife's diabetic and your not then eat a meal together ... Then both test 2 hrs after .. when my wife tests she is always a lot lower than I am after eating. She will be in the mid 5s and I will be about 7 .... I admit a definite home test for possible would good.
 
CollieBoy said:
when I had mine at the hospital it was turn up fasted have HCA take bloods, administer glucose, get ignored for 2 hrs, get HCA take bloods again, get endo to review result 3 months later! As expected, it told me nothing, as my BG is back down well before HR 2:rolleyes:
They didn't even bother to tel me to "Carb Up" for a few weeks beforehand:mad:
Click to expand...
That would be funny if it weren't so disheartening. By the time I was given an appointment with a diabetes specialist I had already reversed my type 2 on my own, primarily by not following their dietary advice of low fat/high carbs.
 
stoomc said:
Hi all,

I've been having a shot of my partners monitor for the past few mornings and everything is fine, as far as fasting blood sugars go
.
However, being the thorough person I am I would like to do a glucose tolerance test as I understand that that is the true test; on a side note, I'm confused why Drs etc. dont just do the GTT as standard - isnt most peoples blood sugar lower in the morning after a fast? Sorry if I picked this up wrong.

So, I dont want to go to the Dr and just ask for one of these tests (of course) and was wondering how I could go about testing it at home?
I understand that this will not be entirely accurate, but I would like to get a general idea.

Anyhow I'm seeing different amount of grams of carbs and timings on the internet.
50 or 75g?
1 or 2 hours?

Also I see on some sites about what they recommend eating can I use a fizzy drink or 2 to get my grams of carbs instead?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
When you have a GTT at the surgery they take a blood sample, you then drink neat glucose, rest for 2hrs then they do another blood test, the 2hour rest is there for a reason. If you were to be diabetic...having just drunk neat glucose that might cause a problem but you would be in safe place. If you were to do this at home and it turned out you were diabetic you might be taking an uneccesery risk. If you think you have a BG problem just eat as normal, testing before the first mouthful and again 2hours after, Nice guidelines say the after test should be under 8.5 so if you were consistantly above that you should see your gp and he would do the test
 
If you google "DIY OGTT" or "carbing up for OGTT" you'll find quite a few links.

You could also do a modified version using food as outlined in this video:


If you want to use a sugar drink, apparently the correct one to use is Original Flavour Lucozade and the quantity to drink is 394ml.
 
If you do it at home you will use finger prick testing . That's relatively in line with venous blood at fasting but not after the 'challenge'
From Wiki
"In a fasting individual, glucose levels are comparable in arterial, venous, and capillary blood. But following meals, capillary and arterial blood glucose levels can be significantly higher than venous levels. This is because tissue cells consume some of the glucose in the blood as it passes from arteries through the capillary bed and into the veins.[20] Although these differences vary widely, one study found that following the consumption of 50 grams of glucose, "the mean capillary blood glucose concentration is higher than the mean venous blood glucose concentration by 35%"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sugar#Blood_glucose_laboratory_tests
If you look at the references you see that the amount of variation differs between individuals; so basically you can't make any true comparison.
 
phoenix said:
If you do it at home you will use finger prick testing . That's relatively in line with venous blood at fasting but not after the 'challenge'
From Wiki
"In a fasting individual, glucose levels are comparable in arterial, venous, and capillary blood. But following meals, capillary and arterial blood glucose levels can be significantly higher than venous levels. This is because tissue cells consume some of the glucose in the blood as it passes from arteries through the capillary bed and into the veins.[20] Although these differences vary widely, one study found that following the consumption of 50 grams of glucose, "the mean capillary blood glucose concentration is higher than the mean venous blood glucose concentration by 35%"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sugar#Blood_glucose_laboratory_tests
If you look at the references you see that the amount of variation differs between individuals; so basically you can't make any true comparison.
Click to expand...
I read through that yesterday as well, thank you very much for posting it up.

I followed the test that the NHS do. I found a couple of PDFs that several NHS hospitals around the country use.
The rule was to use 410ml of original Lucozade, (which equalled 75g) take a reading just before drinking, and take a reading exactly 2 hours afterwards.

I came out at 4.7 mmol at 2 hours and I tested several times but the only variance was up to 4.8 (I was using my partners Contour Next USB meter, please don't tell me that's a bad one!)

I also read on the PDF that it was best to take venous readings preferably, however I did not have that benefit!
However, I also read that the venous can read lower and the capillary can read higher. I am glad it would show higher than lower though, I wouldn't like to think that I was taking a reading that may be a lot higher than I'm looking at.

So what do you think everyone, do you think that reading is OK? I was expecting to see it in the 5s to be honest, is what I viewed normal?

1 last thing. I went to sleep last night around 4.8, but waking up and taking a fasting reading, I was around 5.2 on several readings, is that normal as well? Sorry for all the questions, hopefully these are the last to put my mind at rest.

Thank you everyone again for your help and advise here :)
 
Everyone, I'm going to open up a bit more.
I watched my friends grandad go blind with diabetes when I was very young and it completely scarred me.
I have an absolutely terrifying fear of going blind. I know no one wants to go blind, but it plays on my mind far too much.
Me putting 2 + 2 together and seeing someone with diabetes go blind... reinforces my fear of being diabetic, then leading to blindness.
I believe blindness via diabetes is becoming less common though and not the only cause for blindness.
Any distance further back I can be from blindness the better and this little test means a lot to me. I genuinely don't want to go to the Drs regarding a OGTT as 1. I don't think they would do it anyway and 2. I don't want to be wasting their time.

As I said above, I understand what I'm doing is not entirely accurate, but surely, like you guys taking readings daily, it will give me an idea. If it goes shooting past the certain numbers it will give me some ammo to then go to the Drs.

I can see the confusion with some wondering why I'm not just having a carbs meal, but like the official OGTT, I didn't want any other variables such as fats, proteins etc. getting in the road and I just wanted an idea of what my readings were to be like on a fairly large amount of glucose.

I feel really bad coming onto these forums and a bit of an imposter as I probably do not have diabetes. I'm really sorry.
 
Hi Stoomc

Your numbers look perfectly reasonable. I understand your concern but when you have all clear from the doc then why would you worry, moreover your own ogtt test looks good as well, the figures 2 hours after are completely normal for a non diabetic.
If i was you I would just enjoy the life, rather than keep thinking about it to be honest. What would interest me though is what you were at 1 hour.
 
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