Glucose Tolerance Test

Wednesday:

I had my glucose tolerance test this morning. It involved eating high carb for three days (not everywhere requires this) then fasting for 12 hours and having blood taken, drinking a nasty glucose liquid with 75g of pure carbohydrate, then testing again two hours later. I will get the results (ie whether I am diabetic) in a couple of days. I did tests with my own kit while I was there, I peaked high (12.5 mmol/L, which is diabetic) at one hour but was back down to 10.3 mmol/L (pre-diabetic) at two hours. The official test is at the two hour point so I'm assuming I will still be considered pre-diabetic. But my testing hasn't always matched the official result when I've done this before, so we'll see. Home kits aren't as accurate as the lab.

I have been so inconsistent with "getting healthy" that I really have no idea whether to expect to be better or worse than last time.

I had lunch when I got home but around two hours after that - nearly four hours after the glucose liquid - I had a blood sugar crash. I felt very shaky and odd. I went and tested my blood and it was down to 3.9 mmol/L (70.2 mg/d) which is right on the borderline of normal to low. Certainly nothing dangerous, I wasn't about to go into a coma, but I was trembling so hard I could hardly hold the blood test pen and I felt quite unwell. I went and ate some more, including carbs, and got my blood sugar back up to normal. I'm assuming it was a reaction to the high of the test leading to a crash (reactive hypoglycaemia). I hope that isn't a bad sign. I spent the rest of the day trying to balance my food intake.

It would have been my mother's 75th birthday today. Sad thinking about her.