What test was used for your diagnosis?

C-Mack

Well-Known Member
Messages
52
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Diagnosed in February of this year. Blood tests that my dr. Forced me to do. A1C came back at 13.6% and fasting was 22mmol.

The dr sent me to the ER as type 1, ER released me as Type 2, a week later internal medicine sent me back to the ER as type 1, ER released me again as type 2 but gave me a prescription for a meter.... Went to the appointment at the diabetic clinic 5 days later who looked at everything and said nope, you are type 1 and showed me how to use insulin. I met with them regularly. Endo confirmed type 1 a few weeks after that.

It was a rollercoaster ride but thankfully they kept pushing.
 

PhilJames

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Pretentious people and custard
Can I ask the good people on this forum if they were diagnosed using a testing method other than HBa1c ?

To clarify where you diagnosed using one of the following methods.
  • A fasting plasma glucose test measures your blood glucose after you have gone at least eight hours without eating or drinking anything but plain water. This test is used to detect diabetes or pre-diabetes.
  • An oral glucose tolerance test measures your blood sugar after you have gone at least eight hours without eating and drinking and two hours after you drink a glucose-containing beverage. This test can be used to diagnose diabetes
  • A random plasma glucose test, your doctor checks your blood glucose without regard to when you ate your last meal. This test, along with an assessment of symptoms, is used to diagnose diabetes but not pre-diabetes.
Hey Rosserk - I was diagnosed with random plasma glucose test, confirmed with HbA1c. The reading was +30 mmol/L...!
 

petmad47

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Can I ask the good people on this forum if they were diagnosed using a testing method other than HBa1c ?

To clarify where you diagnosed using one of the following methods.
  • A fasting plasma glucose test measures your blood glucose after you have gone at least eight hours without eating or drinking anything but plain water. This test is used to detect diabetes or pre-diabetes.
  • An oral glucose tolerance test measures your blood sugar after you have gone at least eight hours without eating and drinking and two hours after you drink a glucose-containing beverage. This test can be used to diagnose diabetes
  • A random plasma glucose test, your doctor checks your blood glucose without regard to when you ate your last meal. This test, along with an assessment of symptoms, is used to diagnose diabetes but not pre-diabetes.
After reading other people's post I think I may have got unlucky with getting a diagnosis.
I had been ill sometime until I just couldn't keep anything down and really weak. Mum rang doc who told her I had a tummy bug and keep giving me Lucazade which she did.
Days later dad rang him and made him come out,by this time the house smelt of what mum said was nail varnish remover and I was in a coma. Doctor told my brother who had just past his test to drive to the hospital as was no time to get an ambulance,hospital doctor told mum I would have been dead after another 4 hours.
I was in a coma for 4 days during which the diabetes was diagnosed
 

Iane

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
I was diagnosed in 1977 at the age of nine and they took blood and used urine regency tablet testing then after i lost a lot of weight and was very lethargic for my age at the time. I can honestly say that the advancement of treatment and knowledge has improved hugely as well as the methods used to explain the condition to children as well as adults
 

welsh polly

Member
Messages
9
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Non-insulin injectable medication (incretin mimetics)
I was diagnosed in February this year. I was experiencing osmotic changes due to very high blood glucose. My GP visited me at home for another medical problem. Whilst there, he did a capillary blood test. The meter reading showed high 20's. What fun since then!!! Nothing will ever be the same again. Ho hum.
Mine was determined by a blood test, but actually my GP would not believe I had diabetes although it is hereditary in my family, through the female part of the family, Grandmother (paternal), Aunt (father's sister) and now myself. A registrar in the hospital where I was working as a Med Sec first diagnosed it and advised that I go to my GP (who incidentally used to test for this by urine sample and it was always negative), when the blood test was taken they found out I had diabetes Type 2.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people

vic hill

Well-Known Member
Messages
278
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
note on blood sugar tests
i.e. if done by finger prick you will find if it is take syringe the results will be different any one any comments ????

vic
 

Oldvatr

Expert
Messages
8,470
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
note on blood sugar tests
i.e. if done by finger prick you will find if it is take syringe the results will be different any one any comments ????

vic
This is what is called plasma vs whole blood tests. The older meters test capilliary blood (sometimes referred to as interstitial fluid) and give readings in line withthe NICE test ranges shown on this website. Recently some meter manufacturers have started calibrating their meters to whole blood so that their readings are more like the samples taken by GP's and analysed formally in a laboratory ( i.e .venous blood drawn by syringe). I believe these meters read higher than the old ones by a factor of 1.2
If you are using alternative site testing (not fingertips) then I believe that the actual reading.you should use is the whole blood value since the blood drawn at those sites is closer to venous blood. Note: alternate sites are only useful if the bgl is not changing (i,e, not to be used too close to a meal)
 

Briony1968

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
I was diagnosed with Type 1 on Friday 13th March 1981 (a day after my 13th birthday). At the time my elder sister had had Type 1 for the previous 4 years, so we already had the pee testing kit at home. It wasn't sticks in those days, it was a test tube, a dropper and a bottle of tablets. You had to put so many drops of pee and so many drops of water into the test tube and then add a tablet, and if it turned I think it was dark blue, then you had sugar in your wee. I went and told my mam, who took me to the Drs who did exactly the same test, and it came back positive again. I was taken into hospital that afternoon and started insulin treatment.
 

mkholland

Newbie
Messages
1
Type 2 in1995 diagnosed with initial fasting glucose followed by oral tolerance. This was fairly standard at the time in Australia
 

Babs47burton

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
D
Can I ask the good people on this forum if they were diagnosed using a testing method other than HBa1c ?

To clarify where you diagnosed using one of the following methods.
  • A fasting plasma glucose test measures your blood glucose after you have gone at least eight hours without eating or drinking anything but plain water. This test is used to detect diabetes or pre-diabetes.
  • An oral glucose tolerance test measures your blood sugar after you have gone at least eight hours without eating and drinking and two hours after you drink a glucose-containing beverage. This test can be used to diagnose diabetes
  • A random plasma glucose test, your doctor checks your blood glucose without regard to when you ate your last meal. This test, along with an assessment of symptoms, is used to diagnose diabetes but not pre-diabetes.
glucose tolerance test was used to diagnose my diabetes
 

Genie1

Active Member
Messages
26
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Rudeness
I was given a random plasma glucose test, ater I went to see the Dr ref Cholestorol
 

Tom Green

Well-Known Member
Messages
91
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
Simple prick of the finger blood test. I tested fasting BG of 12 . I didn't really take it too serious for years until my eye sight went side ways.
I now get full tests every 3 months and have for years.
 

JennyP

Active Member
Messages
42
I was diagnosed by a random Blood Sugar of 11. Repeated next week for same result.. Fasting levels were 6.2. I had symptoms for years but it took the random test to diagnose.
 

jrw2007

Member
Messages
5
Using test/retest, fasting plasma glucose (12 hour fast) shows considerable variance possibly dependent on exactly what was eaten or drunk 12 hours previously. HbA1c shows far less variance on test/retest.
 

andyolly

Active Member
Messages
42
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Doctors telling me to take tablets
2 years ago, fasting test, called back to Doctors told by receptionist that I was booked to see diabetic nurse. I had no idea nurse then handed me some test strips and told me I had to take pills for rest of lifeor risk amputation &blindness. I rebelled and keep under control with diet, exercise. Complete low calorie diet now waiting to be tested again. Where have the last 2 years gone.
 

Oldvatr

Expert
Messages
8,470
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Pinprick test in Morrisons car park on a diabetes awareness day event, Confirmed by GP repeating pinprick test, then first HbA1c.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people

Ewan32

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
My mother was diagnosed in her late 40's as having Type 2 Diabetes and was paranoid I would also follow. As such I tested my blood sugars at least 2 or 3 times per month using one of her spare meters and it was always between 5.3 and 6.1.

When I reached 50 I suffered a heart attack and underwent emergency stenting. You can imagine my surprise when a nurse handed me a syringe of insulin on my first night in the ICU "for my diabetes".

The doctor announce that it was my diabetes which had caused the heart attack but I know my glucose levels were fine as I had checked my blood only a few days before !

They just would not believe me and dismissed me out of hand. The nurse at the diabetic clinic who was tasked with teaching me how to inject was a bit more sympathetic saying she had met numerous patients where a heart attack had affected the pancreas.

My problem not is that I have put on 5 stone in weight in the last 7 years and no matter what I seem to do I cannot shift it ! Considering I was only 12st 10 when I had the heart attack and now I'm 18st 2 I find it difficult (if not impossible) to do much exercise as my feet are fairly numb and I get bad pain in my calf muscles when I walk over 300 meters or so.

So to answer the original OP - I never had a test to diagnose the diabetes before the heart attack !
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people

amgrundy

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,333
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Being bored
I went to doctors in 31st Dec 2015 feeling ill with flu, doctor tested my urine said it had glucose in it. He sent me to hospital next day for a fasting blood test. Five days later on 5th Jan 2016 doctor rang me to go and see him at 7 30 pm in the surgery, he told me I had diabetes as my BG reading was high 19.3 , and that I had had it for 6 yrs I was so frustrated, angry, confused etc; why was this not diagnosed earlier I asked ? as I had been going to doctors lots with water infections over the years,:banghead::banghead: had nobody tested me for glucose????? didn't really get an answer, he just said it can take up to 10 yrs before a diagnosis. My daughter wanted me to complain still confused.:confused::confused:
 

Abbiedog9

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I went to my gp for a routine under active thyroid review, had a fasting blood test result of 5.7 and was sent fo r an oral glucose test. The result of that was 11 and I was told from that I was T2. This was last April. Had two Hba1c tests since with results of 33 then 40, and all my own readings have been in the 4.3 - 5.3 range. Not sure what's going on, the diabetes nurse was cagey about all the figures. I have another Hba1c next month which she reckoned would be high because of Christmas - it felt she wanted it to be high!