Blood and urine tests are vital to the diagnosis, monitoring and management of diabetes. This is true whether you have type 1 diabetes, caused by the body's inability to make insulin, type 2 diabetes, arising from the body's inability to use insulin efficiently, or gestational diabetes, which occurs during pregnancy. Ask your doctor which tests you need and how often, what your test results mean, and what changes, if any, your treatment regimen requires.
Diagnosis
Without proper diagnosis and treatment, people with diabetes have abnormally high blood glucose, or hyperglycemia. Without insulin or the ability to use it efficiently, their bodies cannot use blood glucose for fuel. Diabetes is often diagnosed through one of three laboratory tests for blood glucose. The fasting plasma glucose, or FPG, test is taken after eight hours without eating. The oral glucose tolerance test, or OGTT, is administered first after eight hours fasting and again two hours after drinking a glucose beverage. The random test is given at any time. Sometimes after diagnosis, people with diabetes are given a C-peptide blood test to assess whether their bodies still make insulin and if so, how much.
Self-Monitoring
Self-testing your blood glucose several times daily can, in the short term, help you prevent, diagnose and treat dangerously high and low blood sugar levels. In the long term, it can help avert serious diabetes complications like blindness, kidney failure, and heart disease. Your test results can tell you and your doctor whether your prescribed treatment regimen is working and how to improve it. Many people with diabetes also self-test their urine for ketones in situations like extreme hyperglycemia or illness. Ketones in the urine may indicate a need for immediate medical assistance.
Regular Laboratory Tests
Usually administered several times yearly, the hemoglobin A1c blood test offers a "big picture" of how well your diabetes treatment is working. Other blood tests help assess your risk of heart disease or monitor its treatment, especially the lipid profile, which measures certain fats carried in your blood: total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein, or "good," cholesterol, low density lipoprotein, or "bad," cholesterol, and triglycerides. Still other blood tests, especially for creatinine -- a substance that increases with kidney damage -- can help prevent, detect, and monitor treatment of kidney problems. The urine test for microalbumin, or small amounts of protein, is particularly useful for early detection of kidney disease.
Access
According to a November 2006 "Diabetes Voice" article, "untold thousands" of people with diabetes, especially in developing countries, still die each year because they cannot afford or access insulin-let alone blood and urine tests. Even in some wealthier nations, many people cannot afford essential care such as doctor visits, blood glucose monitoring supplies and laboratory tests. If you are an American in this situation, websites such as NeedyMeds.org and HealthCare.gov can direct you to the resources you need to live with diabetes. In the United States and many other countries, national diabetes societies may be able to assist you.
References
- American Diabetes Association: Living With Diabetes: Blood Glucose Control
- FamilyDoctor.org; Blood Tests to Help Manage Your Diabetes; Oct. 2010
- International Diabetes Federation: IDF Member Associations
- Lab Tests Online: Diabetes: Tests
- National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse; Diagnosis of Diabetes; October 2008
- MayoClinic.com; Creatinine Test; July 31, 2010
