What is my normal blood glucose level? How may I distinguish if I do have diabetes or not?
It is very important to know and understand your normal blood glucose level. Especially when you have diabetes,and want to know how well you've been managing it. Now, you must keep in mind that there exists many tests to get to know what your glucose blood level is. What you can do is to collect the right info on each of them, build up your own
chart of blood glucose level
and keep good managed your condition. First of all, when you do a fasting blood glucose test, it's supposed that you haven't eaten for about eight hours. The chart below reveals that your normal blood glucose level should be 70 to 100 mg/dl when you perform this test. It is also considered as
normal fasting glucose.
Meanwhile, if your results vary from 100 mg/dl to 125 mg/dl, than you can consider yourself as a pre-diabetic, and if the result is more than 126 mg/dl, you're a diabetic. But if you want to completely confirm that you may be a diabetic, you should repeat this test and oral glucose tolerance test a second time. You may also ask your physician.
| Fasting Blood Glucose test |
|---|
| Normal fasting glucose level | 70 – 100 mg/dl | | Pre-diabetes ( impaired fasting glucose) | 100 – 125 mg/dl | | Diabetes | 126 mg/dl and above |
Next, another test that you can perform is
oral glucose tolerance test
(OGTT). It's performed into two stages. The first one you measure your fasting glucose blood level. Than at a second stage you have a sweet drink and after two hours you've had it, you measure your blood sugar level. The chart below will demonstrate to you when you'll have
normal sugar level.
| Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT) |
|---|
| Normal glucose tolerance | Less than 140 mg/dl | | Pre-diabetes (impaired glucose tolerance) | 140 mg/dl to 200 mg/dl | | Diabetes | Above 200 mg/dl |
I repeat you once again, that you can consider yourself a diabetic, if you find the results above 200 mg/dl in more than one measurement. There is something I wanted to add for the gestational diabetes. Actually, it's a kind a diabetes which involves pregnancy and disappears after giving birth. Basically, there is a test called gestational diabetes screening test, in base of which will discover if a pregnant woman does have diabetes or not. It's performed two hours after having a 50 gram sweet drink.
| Gestational Diabetes Screening test |
|---|
| Normal blood glucose level | Less than 140 mg/dl | | 3 hours after glucose load | 140 mg/dL |
In case of finding out these results, your physician will prescribe to you another test, called gestational diabetes diagnostic test. In this test you will measure your blood glucose after having a 100 gram sweet drink to definitely confirm the existence of the gestational diabetes.
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