According to the Center for Disease Control, over 29 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with diabetes. Diabetes is a disease linked to the body's insufficient ability to naturally produce a hormone called insulin. Insulin converts sugar, or glucose, which we take with food into energy. Glucose supplies cells in muscles, tissues and the brain with the energy they need to function. All types of diabetes prevent the body from transforming glucose effectively, both due to a lack of insulin and insulin resistance. This leads to complications. If you know the symptoms and risk factors of diabetes, you can suspect you may have it and get tested.
Steps
Part 1 of 3: Diagnosing Type 1 Diabetes
Step 1. Distinguish Type 1
Type 1, once known as juvenile or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic condition most often diagnosed in children. However, it can be diagnosed at any time during life. When a patient has Type 1, the pancreas does not produce or produces little insulin. In most cases, this is due to the fact that the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Since the body does not produce enough insulin, blood glucose cannot be converted into energy. This also results in glucose building up in the blood, causing problems.
- The factors that cause type 1 diabetes are genetic or result from exposure to certain viruses. A virus is a common trigger of Type 1 in adults.
- If you have been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, you will probably need to use insulin.
Step 2. Learn to recognize the symptoms
For type 1 diabetes they include frequent urination, excessive thirst, extreme hunger, unusual and rapid weight loss, irritability, fatigue, and blurry vision. Symptoms are severe and typically last for a few weeks or months. At first these symptoms can be confused with those of the flu.
- An additional symptom in children can include sudden and unusual occurrences of bedwetting.
- Women can also develop candidiasis infections.
Step 3. Take the Glycated Hemoglobin (A1C) test
This test is used to determine prediabetes and also Type 1 diabetes. A blood sample is taken and sent to a laboratory. Here the amount of sugar in the blood associated with hemoglobin is measured. The test is based on your blood sugar levels over the past two to three months. The results vary according to the age of the person. Children may have a higher percentage of sugar than adults.
- If there is 5.7% sugar associated with hemoglobin or less, the levels are normal. If the percentage is greater than 5.7% to 6.4%, the adult patient has prediabetes. If the patient is an adolescent or a young person, the limit value of prediabetes rises from 6.4% to 7.4%.
- If the sugar percentage exceeds 6.5%, the adult patient has diabetes. For younger people or teenagers, a sugar percentage above 7.5% means that the patient has diabetes.
- Pathologies such as anemia and sickle cell anemia interfere with this test. If you have these problems, your doctor may use a different test.
Step 4. Get a Fasting Blood Glucose (FPG) test
This test is the most commonly used because it is accurate and costs less than the others. The patient should not take food or liquids, apart from water, in the eight hours prior to the test. Doctors or nurses take blood and send it to the laboratory to do an analysis of the glucose level.
- If the levels are below 100 milligrams per deciliter (mg / dl), the levels are normal and there is no diabetes. If the levels are between 100 and 125 mg / dL, there could be a prediabetes.
- If the levels exceed 126 mg / dL, the patient probably has diabetes. If abnormal values are found, the examination will be repeated to make sure that the results are valid.
- This test is also used to ascertain Type 2.
- This test is usually done first in the morning, because the patient has to go without food for a long time.
Step 5. Take a Capillary Blood Test
This test is effective but the least accurate of all. Blood is drawn from the patient at any time, regardless of how much and when he ate. If the levels are above 200 mg / dL, the patient may have diabetes.
This test can also detect type 2 diabetes
Part 2 of 3: Diagnosing Type 2 Diabetes
Step 1. Try to understand Type 2
Type 2, once called adult or non-insulin-dependent diabetes, occurs most often in adults over 40. It develops when the body resists the effects of insulin, or when it stops producing enough insulin to regulate blood glucose levels. With Type 2 diabetes, the liver, fat and muscle cells stop using insulin properly. This causes the body to need to produce more insulin to break down the glucose level. Even if the pancreas reacts like this at first, it loses its ability to produce enough insulin over time. This raises the blood glucose level.
- Over 90 percent of people diagnosed with diabetes have Type 2.
- Prediabetes is the initial stage of this form of diabetes. Prediabetes can often be controlled through diet, exercise, and sometimes medication.
- The most important risk factor for Type 2 is being overweight. This is also true for children and adolescents, and the increase in diagnoses for Type 2 is related to weight gain in young people.
- Other risk factors include sedentary lifestyle, family predisposition, race and age, especially from the age of 45.
- Women who have had gestational diabetes and those with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) are more likely to develop Type 2.
Step 2. Identify the symptoms
Type 2 symptoms don't appear as early as Type 1 symptoms. And it's often not diagnosed until tests are done. Symptoms for Type 2 include those associated with Type 1. These are excessive thirst, frequent urination, increased fatigue, extreme hunger, unusual and rapid weight loss and blurred vision. Symptoms specific to Type 2 are: dry mouth, headache, slow-healing wounds or sores, itchy skin, candidiasis infections, unexplained weight gain, and numbness or tingling in the hands and feet.
1 in 4 people with type 2 diabetes do not know they have it
Step 3. Take the Oral Glucose Load Test (OGTT)
This examination requires a period of two hours at the doctor's office. The patient's blood is drawn before the test. Then, the patient drinks a specific glucose drink and waits for two hours. Blood is then drawn several times over the course of two hours and glucose levels are determined.
- At less than 140 mg / dL, the levels are normal. Between 140 and 199 mg / dl, the patient has prediabetes.
- If the levels are 200 mg / dL or higher, the patient probably has diabetes. If the levels indicate abnormal values, the examination will be repeated to make sure that the results are valid.
Step 4. Take the Glycated Hemoglobin (A1C) test
This test is also used to determine Type 2 diabetes and prediabetes. The blood is taken and sent to the laboratory for analysis. The laboratory measures the percentage of blood sugar associated with the patient's hemoglobin. This test describes the patient's blood sugar levels over the past few months.
- If the value is 5.7%, or lower, of sugar associated with hemoglobin, the levels are normal. If the percentage is from 5.7% to 6.4%, the patient has prediabetes.
- If the percentage of sugar exceeds 6.5%, the patient has diabetes. Since this test calculates blood sugar levels over a long period of time, it does not need to be repeated.
- Certain blood disorders such as anemia and sickle cell anemia can interfere with this test. If you have these or other blood problems, your doctor may request an alternative test.
Part 3 of 3: Diagnosing Managerial Diabetes
Step 1. Learn about gestational diabetes
This pathology is diagnosed only in pregnant women. During this period, the female body increases the production of certain hormones and nutrients that can cause insulin resistance. As a result, the pancreas increases insulin production. Typically, the pancreas is able to respond by producing more insulin, and the mother will have slightly higher, but manageable, blood sugar levels. If the body starts producing too much insulin, the mother will be diagnosed with gestational diabetes.
- If you are pregnant, you should get tested in week no. 24 and n. 28 to see if you have diabetes. There are no symptoms, and this makes it difficult to find out otherwise. However, not diagnosing it can cause problems with pregnancy.
- This type of diabetes disappears after the baby is born. It can reappear as Type 2 later in life.
Step 2. Take note of the symptoms
Gestational diabetes has no obvious signs or symptoms, but the mother is at risk if she contracted diabetes before pregnancy. If you think you may be at risk, you can take tests before getting pregnant to see if there are any indications, such as prediabetes. The only way to be certain, however, is to take tests during pregnancy.
Step 3. Take the Initial Glucose Challenge test
This test requires the patient to drink a sugar solution. So you have to wait for an hour. After an hour, the blood is analyzed for sugar levels. If these are below 130-140 mg / dl, they are normal. If higher, there is the risk of gestational diabetes, however it is only a higher probability. To be sure, an additional test called an oral glucose load test is required.
Step 4. Take the oral glucose load test
This test requires you to fast the night before. The next morning, glucose levels are first analyzed with a blood test. Then the patient drinks another sugar solution. This drink has a higher glucose level. Blood glucose levels are checked every hour for three hours. If the last two readings are above 130-140 mg / dL, the patient is diagnosed with gestational diabetes.
