City of El Paso offering free diabetes screenings for borderland residents

The City of El Paso Department of Public Health wants residents to put their health first with diabetes screenings.

They're offering free A1C testing to help prevent and manage diabetes. You don't have to worry about eating before it, because it measures your average blood sugar levels over the past two to three months.

It helps identify pre-diabetes or diabetes, tracks if your treatment is working, and allows the doctor know how you can reduce the risk of long-term complications — those include heart disease, kidney disease, or nerve damage.

"What we want to do is bring that service to the community because we know and we understand that a lot of the people in our community might not have transportation, might not have medical insurance, might have not seen a physician in a long time," says health authority of El Paso Dr. Hector Ocaranza. 

The test is a prick on the finger to draw blood and results are out within a few minutes.

Ocaranza says diabetes can often have no symptoms.

But possible warning signs may include:

• Excessive thirst or urination
• Unexplained weight loss
• Blurred vision
• Fatigue

"We still continue to recommend everybody to go get regular checkups. A lot of us might not do that, and that's why it takes a long time to get diagnosed," he says. "So bringing that screening test to the community, it is extremely important because that's how we're going to be finding out."

Depending on those results, the doctor will guide you on the next steps for your health.

"For those that have pre-diabetes, this may be the wakeup call that they need to go and do those little changes in their lifestyles because it only takes very small steps," Ocaranza says. "Eating healthier, increasing the physical activity, we cannot change the genetics, but we can change what we do in a day-to-day basis."

They will host A1C screenings every Tuesday in February from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the following locations:

• February 3: Chamizal Community Center, 2119 Cypress
• February 10: Galatzan Recreation Center, 650 Wallenberg
• February 17: Marty Robbins Recreation Center, 11620 Vista del Sol
• February 24: Rae Gilmore Recreation Center, 8501 Diana