Labs and Diagnostics

Your 1-hour glucose test cutoff was chosen by your practice, not by a universal rule — ACOG permits 130, 135 or 140 mg/dL, and the difference matters.

CGM cost without insurance drops to about $11 a month if you use a meter and strips at 18 cents each — the option most price guides leave out.

Smartwatch blood sugar sensing stays unproven: in one 2024 evaluation of a light-based monitor, 18.5% of readings met the ISO accuracy standard.

The best glucose meter isn't a brand. Medicare covers 300 test strips every three months for insulin users, and 100 for everyone else.

CGM vs finger stick gaps are usually two compliant devices, not one broken one — sensors read interstitial fluid, which trails blood by minutes.

Every OTC CGM caps what it displays. Lingo reports only 55–200 mg/dL — outside that, the app shows no number at all.

Glucose and A1C measure the same sugar on different clocks: one captures this morning, the other 3 months, with the last 30 days weighing heaviest.

Types of glucose tests differ more than patients expect. An A1C of 6.8% can read
6.4-7.2% on a repeat of the same blood sample.

Glucose in urine points most people straight to diabetes. That kidney threshold, quoted as 180 mg/dL, is reported from 54 to 300 in diabetes.

The oral glucose tolerance test measures two hours of your body clearing a 75g sugar load — and roughly 20% of results come back non-diagnostic.

Fasting before a glucose test means at least 8 hours, water only. But two of the five common glucose tests require it — the other three don't.