Blood Sugar Monitoring: A Comprehensive Guide to Home Testing

For diabetics, regular blood sugar testing helps manage this dangerous disease and avoid serious medical complications. Most doctors recommend regular testing for their diabetic patients and any one of the effective home testing kits available to facilitate the process without inconveniencing diabetics with daily trips to the hospital. These devices, along with a regular testing schedule, allow diabetics to effectively and easily monitor their blood sugar at home. The process is simple but requires a good deal of caution and attention to detail.

Things You'll Need

• Lancets
• Blood sugar meter (blood glucose meter)
• Testing strips (compatible with the meter)
• Cotton balls

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Instructions

• 1

  Wash your hand thoroughly with warm water and soap. Dry your hands with a clean towel.

• 2

  Turn on your blood sugar meter and prepare it for testing.

• 3

  Remove a testing strip from the bottle and tightly close the bottle to keep moisture from contaminating the remaining strips.

• 4

  Gently stick the side of your fingertip with a lancet. Any fingertip will be sufficient.

  If you are uncomfortable sticking yourself with a lancet, consider purchasing a lancet device, a pen-like application tool that holds the lancet and controls its puncture depth.

• 5

  Put a drop of blood on the appropriate place on the testing strip, covering the area completely.

• 6

  Apply pressure to your fingertip with a cotton ball to stop the bleeding.

• 7

  Insert the testing strip into the meter and wait for the results. Most devices deliver results within seconds.

• 8

  Record your results to discuss them with your physician. If you are having trouble keeping good records, you can use several blood glucose monitors that come with software to automatically chart blood sugar test data.