Blood glucose testing

[Spudz]

Hi, this may be a stupid question but I plan on taking regular finger prick tests twice every other day for a while and was wondering when was the best times to take them? Yet to see my DN, got an appointment Tuesday, but would like to know in the meantime.

 

[silver minion]

What are you hoping to check @Spudz ?
Most people find checking first thing in the morning gives them a trend of whether blood glucose is rising or falling over weeks. Bear in mind these can be high compared to pre meals later in the day.
Another good check is just before and 2 hours after a meal. This will help identify which carb elements of your meal push up your blood glucose too high. Ideally you want the increase to be no more than 2 - 3mmol post meal. You could check midday or evening meal and record what you eat.
As blood glucose levels rise and fall during the day keeping to consistent times will build up a longer term picture of how you are doing. On going reducing levels should also reflect in your next hba1c test results.
Good luck and keep us updated with your progress.

 

[Lucyr]

Hi, this may be a stupid question but I plan on taking regular finger prick tests twice every other day for a while and was wondering when was the best times to take them? Yet to see my DN, got an appointment Tuesday, but would like to know in the meantime.

Why are you taking the tests? What information do you want to learn and what decisions will you make based on the results?

The answers to those questions will decide when to test.

 

[rebrascora]

Random testing is rarely useful, so as stated above, you need to decide what you want to gain from the testing in order to make it worthwhile or helpful or cost effective. I think if you want to learn anything about your diet, you probably need to do more frequent testing than every other day or you will lose track of what it tells you particularly as each meal usually needs 2-3 pairs of test results to see a clear pattern. Testing every other day will mean it will take you many months to amass enough data, whereas testing every day will give you more obvious results quicker.
You don't have to test every meal every day but perhaps work on one meal at a time for a week or so and build up a repertoire of meals that work for you for breakfast or lunch or evening meal. Breakfast is usually the easiest one to start with as many of us find it convenient to have more or less the same thing for breakfast every morning. Then once you figure out your main breakfast option that doesn't spike you too high plus one or two other options, leave breakfast testing alone and move on to lunch and test several meals several times until you can see what works and what doesn't for lunch and then move on to testing evening meal. Then once you have that sorted you might just want to test your reaction to any new meal outside of your basic repertoire of safe regular choices, that you haven't tested before.
So this means some intensive testing at first and then tailing off to infrequent testing of new foods/meals and perhaps just the odd double check on old favourites as years go by to ensure there isn't any obvious upward drift or perhaps some waking reading checks to keep an eye on drift over the months and years although your HbA1c will usually indicate that.

 

[Spudz]

Thanks for the great, informative answers. I suppose, whilst still in the first week of being diagnosed, I'm doing the usual newbie thing and panicking, trying to ingest all the information available at once and beginning to have a melt down
I feel the need to keep track of my BS levels for obvious reasons and can see the point of the above suggestions of doing them everyday along with keeping a record of the food eaten at each meal so will adopt that regime for a while until, at least, the time comes, fingers crossed, when readings level out.
What springs to mind is with such intensive testing, (finger pricking, the monitor option is just too expensive at the moment), how long are my fingertips going to last

 

[rebrascora]

What springs to mind is with such intensive testing, (finger pricking, the monitor option is just too expensive at the moment), how long are my fingertips going to last

There should be no deterioration! I was testing up to 16 times a day at one point for about a month before I got sensors and always 7-8 times a day, every day for more than a year before I moved onto sensors and it was not a problem at all. Getting the right depth setting for the lancing device and many people argue a good lancing device (The Accuchek FastClix is regarded as the gold standard of finger prickers) and a good technique and rotating fingers so you prick a different one each time, then there should be no damage.

 

[Lucyr]

I feel the need to keep track of my BS levels for obvious reasons

There is no point in keeping track of your bs levels, that doesn’t impact your hba1c. There’s only a benefit if you purposefully decide when to test to address your goals and use the information to make decisions.

 

[Martin.A]

There is no point in keeping track of your bs levels, that doesn’t impact your hba1c. There’s only a benefit if you purposefully decide when to test to address your goals and use the information to make decisions.

It might not impact your HbA1c directly but if you test at the same times every day you'll begin to get a rough idea of where your HbA1c might be heading. Some, like @Docb have it down to a fine art. My predictions of HbA1c have been accurate to within +/- 2 across my last 8 HbA1c tests over the 5 years or so I've been recording my finger prick tests.

 

[Lucyr]

My predictions of HbA1c have been accurate to within +/- 2 across my last 8 HbA1c tests over the 5 years or so I've been recording my finger prick tests.

Predicting your a1c doesn’t affect the result either, unless you time the tests to be at points that influence decisions that can affect a1c

 

[Martin.A]

Predicting your a1c doesn’t affect the result either, unless you time the tests to be at points that influence decisions that can affect a1c

My first 3 predictions were that my HbA1c was heading downwards, and the subsequent 5 that it was stable, which was exactly the outcomes.

 

[helli]

What springs to mind is with such intensive testing, (finger pricking, the monitor option is just too expensive at the moment), how long are my fingertips going to last

Sadly, the vendors of expensive CGMs push the myth that finger pricking is painful. This is not the case. People with Type 1 have been finger pricking at least 4 times every day and often many times more for decades and our fingers work just as they did before we were diagnosed.
Finger pricking should be pain free if you do it right. This means
- make sure your fingers are clean. This ensures you have nothing on your fingers than could affect the reading and need a repeat.
- make sure your fingers are warm. Washing them in warm water or hugging a cup of tea or coffee and can bring the blood closer to the surface.
- prick the side of your finger rather than the centre of the pad.
- adjust your lancing device to the minimum depth to get blood.
- rotate your fingers. You have 8 fingers - use them all. I came up with a strategy of using left fingers on odd dates (1st, 3rd, 5th, …, 29th and 31st of the month) and right fingers on even dates. I used little finger for breakfast readings, ring finger for lunch readings, next finger for dinner and pointy finger for bedtime.

Like @rebrascora i was pricking more than 20 times a day before getting a CGM.

Talking of CGM, they are expensive to self fund but Libre is available on free trial from their website. If you register, you will get 2 weeks of useful data provided you have a smart phone and understand the limitations.

 

[Martin.A]

You have 8 fingers - use them all.

Just out of curiosity does anyone else do that? DUK says avoid thumb and index finger, presumably for a reason, consequently I've only ever used the other six.

 

[Lucyr]

Just out of curiosity does anyone else do that? DUK says avoid thumb and index finger, presumably for a reason, consequently I've only ever used the other six.

I use all 10 digits

 

[rebrascora]

I mostly just use my ring and little finger on my left hand (for convenience) now that I don't test so much, mostly because those are the cleanest when I don't have access to washing facilities and they bleed easiest, probably because the skin is less hard and dry on those fingers than the rest.... I work outside a lot so often doing quite rough work with my hands, so cleaner and slightly softer skin works for me.
I am sure there was mention when I was diagnosed that the index finger was not used as the sensitivity should not be compromised in case you needed to read braille at a later date. Not sure if this is an old wives tale, but I would be goosed anyway as I have very little soft sensitive skin on any but ring and little finger. I can't even use the biometric fingerprint machines at the airport as they are too worn.

 

[helli]

Just out of curiosity does anyone else do that? DUK says avoid thumb and index finger, presumably for a reason, consequently I've only ever used the other six.

Rumour has it that the advice to avoid index finger is because you need to protect it for when you go blind and need it to read braille.
As for the thumb, I keep it as “back up”. For example, if I catch a finger in the car door making it out of action for pricking.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

DUK says avoid thumb and index finger, presumably for a reason, consequently I've only ever used the other six.

I presume it's just that index fingers are particularly sensitive (and often used to touch things) and our opposable thumbs are unusually important for different reasons.

Not sure we should absolutely avoid using them for blood testing. I've certainly used my index fingers a few times. Can't remember ever using my thumbs. It's probably a good idea to use them less often than the others.

 

[goodybags]

For the first few years I only really only used the index finger an my left hand (as I’m right handed)
and guess what, that one is the hardest to get blood out of these days so really just use the other 6 but always careful to rotate and alternate
plus have a much more finger friendly pricier these days
each of my test kits has a AcuCheck fastclix (thanks to whoever it was that recommended I get one a few years ago)

 

[Drummer]

Hi, this may be a stupid question but I plan on taking regular finger prick tests twice every other day for a while and was wondering when was the best times to take them? Yet to see my DN, got an appointment Tuesday, but would like to know in the meantime.

Usually the object of testing for a type 2 is to find out if you are reducing your blood glucose levels to normal, so the usual method is to test just before eating and two hours later, assessing the carbs you have eaten.
I was able to discover that I could not eat as many carbs in the morning as in the evening, so I devised breakfasts which too that into account, then I could stop testing those meals.
With that sorted I continued testing my late meals, discovering that I can extract more carbs from peas and beans not in pods than listed, so I need to have only half portions of those,
When I got my after dinner tests down to under 8mmol/l I kept to those meals and found my levels continued to drop - presumably as my metabolism recovered.
After that I did not need to check unless I was trying out something out of the ordinary.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hope you find a testing routine that helps you @Spudz

Fasting (waking) checks can give you an overall ‘direction of travel’ indication. And pairs of checks around meals can help you evaluate how your metabolism is coping with different sources and portion-sizes of carbs.

But at the end of the day, the routine that’s right for you will be the one you find most helpful 🙂

 

[Spudz]

Thanks, that's made it a lot easier to understand. Worked a routine out which I'll try for a week, hopefully should be workable