In issue 10 of Sweet Life magazine, we give some great blood sugar testing tips… Here are some more tips to bear in mind from Diabetes Nurse Educator Kate Bristow:
- Your blood sugar test is your day to day monitor – use it to test and understand your diabetes and the way it affects your body. Different people react differently to foods, illness and stress. Testing helps you understand how you as an individual deal with different situations.
- When pricking your finger, the sides of the fingers towards the tip are less sensitive than the middle pad of the tip of the finger.
- If you are on a long acting and rapid acting insulin (i.e. 4 injections a day) it is better to adjust your rapid acting insulin that is given with meals, according to the carbohydrates on your plate. This is called carbohydrate counting and your dietician can teach you how to do it. It gives you better accuracy and less risk of lows and highs in your blood sugar provided you are doing it right.
- Diabetes Educators and some doctors can download blood sugar meters on to their computers giving an accurate pattern for interpretation. Of course this is only as good as the number of tests done. For example, if one is only testing at the same time every day we are not going to get as much information as someone who is testing before and 2 hours after every meal. Again your educator can help with a testing schedule which fits in with your lifestyle and is not too arduous.
Do you have any questions about blood sugar testing?
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