About diabetes testing
Type 2 diabetes develops silently. By the time symptoms appear (excess thirst, frequent urination, unexplained weight loss, slow-healing wounds), blood-sugar levels are often well above the threshold for years. A single fasting blood-sugar test gives you a snapshot, but HbA1c reveals your 3-month average — a far more reliable indicator. Glucose tolerance and insulin tests help diagnose insulin resistance and pre-diabetes that an isolated fasting reading would miss.
After diagnosis, regular HbA1c testing every 3 months is the standard of care — letting you and your clinician see if diet, exercise and medication are controlling glucose. Annual lipid, kidney function and microalbumin urine tests catch the long-term complications (heart, kidney, eye) that diabetes can trigger.