In my years as a family clinician, I’ve noticed a curious trend.
The curious trend of over diagnosis and over treatment. Suddenly, everyone’s throwing around the term “pre-diabetes” like it’s the hottest gossip in town. Even our trusted diagnostic centers are jumping on the bandwagon, introducing “pre-diabetic reference ranges” for at least the first line blood sugar tests.
It’s like telling someone they’re mildly pregnant! Last time I checked, it’s either a yes or a no, no in-between!
Is Pre-Diabetes even a legitimate medical condition?
The tangled web of medical terminology strikes again!! Confusing and always evolving sorry mutating. It’s like trying to navigate a maze made of alphabet soup. But the real scoop is that this condition is almost mostly confusedly with POTENTIAL DIABETES. The good news is there’s no official club called “prediabetes”.
Then who is a potential Diabetic? Imagine a gentle tap on the shoulder from the diabetes fairy saying, “Hey buddy, watch out, you might be heading down a sugary road” is who a potential diabetic is. And labeling someone as “potentially awesome” before they’ve never even aced their superhero training, is essentially who a newly labelled Pre Diabetic is. Still confused? Don’t be.
How is one diagnosed to be a Potential Diabetic?
A Potential diabetic is somebody who is likely to develop diabetes in the future. In these people when first line diabetes tests are done for the first time or are done as a part of monitoring every once in 3 months the results are as follows
- FBG/FBS are usually normal
- PGBS (Post Glucose Blood Sugar ) or OGTT (Oral Glucose Tolerance Test) may be deranged (Mildly elevated to Super elevated).
- HBA1C is usually normal .
Are there any Symptoms for Pre Diabetes??
Intermittent tingling, numbness, and burning sensations popping up like surprise guests at a party. Have you ever felt these symptoms before? These famous symptoms could crash the shindig anywhere from your toes to your fingers , making it feel like your extremities are doing their own show of fireworks.
Is this because your blood sugars are singing the wrong tune? Nope, not at all. Hold onto your socks, because here’s the kicker: none of these sensations are waving red flags for “Over diagnosed PRE-DIABETES” or its early bird cousin, EARLY DIABETES. In fact these so called famous symptoms could be because of your spine. For type 2 diabetes to make its grand entrance, your blood glucose levels have to go through the roof, before you’ll start getting those classic symptoms.
Is it mandatory to start a medication like Metformin for Prediabetes?
For all those who got their yearly blood work up recently done and panicking and staring at the reference ranges and diagnosing themselves as PREDIABETIC, please stop! I request each one of you to not even regard PREDIABETES as a Disease. For people who have a strong family history of diabetes will only require 3 monthly monitoring while implementing doable self care.
Most Clinicians prefer Metformin as the drug of choice (First Line) only for confirmed cases of diabetes.
A well Balanced diet, 45 mins of moderate exercise and staying physically active at least most of the day is all that needs to be consistently practiced to stay on track.
For every problem there is a simple solution but for a complexly perceived problem the solution remains embarrassingly simple. Stop over thinking and reach out your family physician or healthcare provider.
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