Be prepared. It’s a good philosophy to have especially when dealing with the potential for diabetes.

How is diabetes diagnosed, you ask? What are the warning signs that you should look out for? You’ve come to the right place for answers. Now simply prepare yourself to be prepared.

What Are the Symptoms?

Hyperglycemia

Symptoms of hyperglycemia (hyper = high, glyc = sugar, emia = blood) are caused by excess sugar and your body working to get rid of it. Not everyone experiences all of these symptoms during diagnosis, but here are a few to watch for:

• Going to the bathroom/urinating often: When blood glucose is high, your kidneys will try to filter out the glucose. This causes increased urination and for sugar to appear in your urine. The higher your blood glucose; the more your kidneys will make urine.
• Thirsty: When you urinate a lot, your body needs more water. This need for more water will cause you to be thirsty.
• Hunger: Since the cells are not getting glucose, they will think they are starving. The cells will signal the brain that they need more food.
• Blurred vision: Glucose in your blood may accumulate on the lens of your eye causing blurriness. Getting your glucose at normal levels will make this go away. For this reason, do not test your vision for glasses if your blood glucose is not controlled. Wait six-eight weeks after your blood glucose is back to normal. This blurred vision is not the same as the potential long-term eye complications from diabetes.
• Itching: This occurs due to dryness from dehydration.
• Confusion: Your brain cannot function as well when glucose levels are low. Dehydration may also cause confusion.

Insight Into Blood Glucose Levels

You’ve heard of normal blood glucose levels, fasting blood glucose levels and more. Here’s your chance to gain the insight you’ve been searching for.

Normal Blood Glucose Levels: Normal blood glucose two hours after a meal is typically less than 140mg/dL. Your blood glucose tested at anytime should not be over 200mg/dL.To be diagnosed with diabetes, you would need to have two tests on two different days. One test alone cannot diagnose diabetes.

Fasting Blood Glucose Levels: Normal fasting blood glucose levels are between 70 and 100mg/dL. Fasting means you have not had any food or drink with calories for 10-12 hours.

Prediabetes Blood Glucose Levels: Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and impaired fasting glucose (IFG) are conditions when your blood glucose levels are not normal, but they are not high enough to be considered diabetes. These conditions are referred to as prediabetes. IGT is when your blood glucose 2 hours after a meal is between 140 and 199mg/dL. IFG is when your fasting glucose is between 100 and 125mg/dL. Rick factors for prediabetes include, being overweight and age 45 or older.

Diabetes Blood Glucose Levels: To be considered as having diabetes, your fasting blood glucose would typically be 126mg/dL or higher, or your blood glucose 2 hours after a meal would need to be 200mg/dL or higher.

What are the types of Diabetes? 

Type 1, Type 2 or Gestational Diabetes