Whether it is by a screening test, or by a regular visit to your doctor, how will the doctor know if you have diabetes?

In a screening program, the doctor or nurse may use a glucose meter, sometimes called reflectance meter, to check your blood sugar level. A drop or two of blood is usually taken from a little prick in your fingertip - is put onto a special chemically treated strip of testing paper. Within one to three minutes, depending on what type of glucose meter is used, the strip is put into the meter. A small screen on the meter the shows a digital readout of the blood sugar level.

The accuracy of such machines depends on a variety of factors, including the kind of machine itself and the technique of the person using it. As we will see later, glucose meters can be very helpful for home monitoring of blood sugar levels. However, they are not generally used for actually diagnosing diabetes.

The most accurate way to diagnose diabetes is by checking your blood glucose level in the laboratory on at least one occasion. Sometimes two or three tests are necessary for a definite diagnosis.

Initially, the doctor may take a random blood glucose test, meaning that it can be done at any time of day, whether or not you have had anything to eat or drink. Or the doctor may ask you to fast during the night - taking nothing but plain water for 10-12 hours before the blood test. This is called a fasting blood sugar or fasting blood glucose test. To be the most accurate, it should be done the first thing in the morning.

When the doctor sees the results of your blood sugar test, he will decide whether or not further tests are necessary. A normal blood sugar level would be approximately 60-120 mg/dl or 3.1-6.6 mmol/l - depending on which measurement terminology your doctor uses.

First the laboratory will test your blood while you are still fasting. Immediately after drawing the blood for the first test, you will receive a special glucose solution to drink. Your blood will be checked again one hour and two hours after the drink. While you wait between tests, you should sit down and relax, but you should not smoke. If you have never had any of the signs of diabetes, you may be asked to wait one more hour for still another blood glucose test.

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A person with diabetes is likely to lose weight for no apparent reason, even though his appetite seems normal. In type 1 diabetes especially, the person may feel extremely hungry and eat a lot of food. Yet in spite of the increased amount of food he eats, he may lose weight.

The weight loss may be very rapid - as much as 15 pounds in two weeks.

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As the kidneys filter out the excess sugar from the blood and it “spills over” into the urine, the diabetics urine will be sweet. You and I might not be aware of the urine’s sweetness, but the ants around the toilet are likely to notice.

As a matter of fact, the very name diabetes mellitus describes the disease well. Diabetes comes from the Greek word meaning “fountain” or “siphon”, referring to the frequent passing of urine. Mellitus is from the Latin word for “honey”. Strange as it may seem, the earliest test for diagnosing diabetes was to smell and taste the urine to see if it was sweet!

Nowadays, many cases of diabetes are discovered when a doctor asks a patient to send some urine to the laboratory for routine testing. If the report shows sugar in the urine, it does not always mean that the person has diabetes. However, if there is blood glucose test see whether diabetes is the cause.

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