Diabetes Control

Whether your treatment consists of diet alone, diet and tablets or diet and insulin, you need regular blood tests to keep a check on your blood sugar. Urine sugar test is not a reliable indicator of diabetes control.

When blood glucose remains higher than 200mg/dl for 8-10 weeks, the concentration of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) arises. A (HbA1c) measurement therefore reflects the blood glucose control over a preceding 2-3 months period, while the estimates of blood glucose indicate the glucose value at the time of blood test. HbA1c values between 6-7% indicate very good control on diabetes. You should aim at keeping your blood glucose in the normal range i.e. between 90-130 mg/dl while fasting and less than 180 mg/dl after meals and HbA1c around 7%. Frequent tests for blood glucose are necessary when starting treatment with insulin.

If you are doing capillary blood glucose test using a hand held glucometer, do not squeeze the finger to bring out a sample after you have picked. This invariably gives a low glucose value. Ask your diabetes nurse for a demonstration of capillary blood glucose test.

Urine test for sugar is not reliable indicator of diabetes control. Although spillage of sugar in urine occurs when the blood glucose exceeds 180 mg/dl in the majority of healthy persons, this is not always so in a patient with diabetes. Most patients with diabetes of many years acquire an increase in the renal threshold for glucose (capacity to prevent spillage of glucose into urine). Hence urine test for glucose is not helpful for assessing control of diabetes. In the presence of urinary infections, the bacteria eats up the sugar present in urine, thereby making urine test for sugar unreliable.