Fasting and Diabetes

Some suggestions for the next time you have to fast for labs:

1) stop eating 12 hours before the lab draw

2) leave a note on the bathroom counter (or someplace you’ll see it in the morning) so you remember not to take breakfast insulin and/or eat breakfast

3) check with your provider beforehand to find out if it’s ok to treat a low (and what you can use to treat it, for example, are glucose tablets ok?) if you do go low prior to the blood draw.

And here’s a bonus suggestion: 4) drink water the morning of so they have an easier time getting blood!

As you may have guessed, I recently had a fasting blood draw and I messed up on most of the above. I ate something 11 hours before the blood draw, I took my insulin like a diabetes robot the morning of the blood draw, and I went low and ate glucose tablets prior to the blood draw. The good news: I did drink water and there was no problem drawing my blood. Now we’ll see if the results were skewed and I have to do it all over again…

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