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New to home testing....it's a bloodbath!!

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Ginger

Ginger

Active Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hello all. So I've had my SD Codefree monitor for a few days, and like a good girl I have sat and read every single little booklet and leaflet in the box, and even watched a youtube video about using the finger pricker. Tonight was my first test. It did not go well. Turns out I'm not a little bleeder after all! Several wasted test strips because of inadequate amounts of blood. I'd fire the lancet but no blood would come out until I milked the finger but then only a tiny drop.
So I've ended up with multiple pricks in most of the fingers of the one hand trying to get a big enough sample (many of which gave a tiny blob at first and then continued to leak a little but too late for a test), and smears of blood all over my nice pristine nobody-touch-it-cos-it's-mine-and-its-new monitor. It will get better I'm sure, I just need practice. Anyway, sorry for ramble but my question is about getting a better blood sample size. I've seen the advice about washing hands in warm water and milking down the finger but this didn't seem to help much. Any tips would be helpful. Would ASTs give a bigger blob of blood?

And silly question but remember I'm new to testing: do you put a plaster on the finger that was pricked or leave it? Because one of my pricks is large and very visible and bloody, so doing this several times a day would be infection prone, surely?

BTW, my reading was 5.6 (Please let my monitor not be too inaccurate. And please let me not have got an erroneous reading because I messed up).
 
Hi Ginger. I bet their are a lot of people who on reading this have been taken back to their early days of testing and are going "ouch" in complete sympathy.
There is a technique to this task and once you've found yours , you'll be wondering why you had so much trouble before.
Personally I wouldn't put a plaster on my just , technical term here 😉 bodged finger :D.
I'm going to give you a link to "painless pricks" by Alan S
http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.co.uk/2006/10/painless-pricks.html
Also have a read of this
http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Painless+pricks+ No I'm not repeating myself honest :D , its more about his earl days with diabetes and lets you into a wee secret 😱:D

If you continue having problems persuading your fingers to give up the red stuff , ask us again.
 
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I too had terrible trouble to start with, getting enough blood to test, and esp that first reading in the morning. I've now worked out which parts of the finger give more blood, and to wash the hands in hottish water then to rest the fingertips on the heated towel rail, then flex the fingers before pricking... It sometimes takes a little while to get enough blood to appear, so it pays to be patient. I put the sensor strip into the machine and rest it ready, but I don't push it home now, until I have a big enough blob of blood. Then I use the index finger and thumb to push in the strip, and pick up the monitor. There's a knack too, for feeding the blood onto the strip -

You will get better at this! It just takes a bit of practice, as you surmised
 
Hi Ljc and Sara and thanks for those replies. I had a light meal after testing and then did a test 2 hours after that, which went a little better. I managed to get a bit more blood on the first attempt this time (yay!) but still managed to get blood on my pyjamas. When so little comes out, how on earth do I manage to get so messy with it? Must work on that, or else only wear red clothes.

Another question: when you massage down the finger to squeeze more blood out, how near to the prick can you go? I think I saw a video saying not to massage near the prick, just the lower parts of the finger. I am wondering if doing it too close to the prick site will squeeze out that interstitial fluid I have read about.

Ljc, good to read those blog posts, thanks for linking. What was the wee secret? I read the whole of both links, I promise - was it about never changing his lancet?

Sara, interesting what you say about not pushing the test strip home until your blob of blood is ready.....does it affect things if the strip is in the monitor for too long? I think mine was in for a good while before I got a big enough blob.

Next test is later today when I get up.
 
Yup. 😱🙂
I don't massage (naughty iPad put rude word instead ) blood out, I put bodged finger in the crook between index finger and thumb of other hand and apply gentle but increasing pressure, then release for a second , squeeze and release as necessary, you need to release so the area can fill up with blood again. I don't go near the prickEd area , I've found going to near results in very little blood coming out.

Re blood bath, you could start a new fashion IMG_0163.GIF
Try pressing your thumb on bodged area for a few seconds while you wait for results to come up on meter.
Or is it spraying out ?
 
I too have just started testing, wasted strips and lancets, (how many times can you use one?) how many times should we test? I do before and after meals, early morning and evening. I don't want to get hung up on testing, it's easy to get paranoid, plus my nurse told me testing was unnecessary so I bought my own and lancets and strips aren't cheap!! Testing is useful as a pattern emerges, and you can adjust your diet accordingly. From fish and chips to vegetable soup is a big leap o_O
 
I don't put a plaster on. I test up to 8 times a day I'd go bankrupt! :D I normally just suck my finger for a second then Im good to go. Because the prick is so tiny, the hole stops bleeding almost immediately.

You may need to put your finger bodger (very technical term there!) on a higher depth setting. Remember to do the side of your finger rather than the pad as it hurts a lot less.

I agree with the washing your hands in warm water if your hands are cold. Cold hands don't bleed much and it hurts more. I also shake my hand every now and again if it didn't work first time round.
 
I always make sure the water I'm using is the hottest I can take and give the finger I'm going to use a bit of a massage when I'm drying them, and no don't have to bother with plasters, like @grovesy says if there's quite a big blob I just wrap a tissue or bit of kitchen roll around it for a minute, good luck with future tests it does get easier 🙂 x
 
I took a while to get to grips with testing, also having the issue of not enough blood to test, still happens some days, For me it was about finding the sweet spot on the side of my fingers where it did not hurt and I get a good size blob of blood.

I do not bother with plasters either.
 
My nurse friend said that nurses will warm the finger before hand to help.
 
Oh dear, @Ginger, you did make me laugh! I did the same when I first started testing, and it's a knack that will come with patience and practice 🙂, though I still bugger the occasional strip even now! I'm quite a good, er, bleeder - I used to be a blood donor and rarely had trouble getting the stuff out.

You'll soon get the hang of it so don't worry. I've never put a plaster on it, I suck the finger afterwards if it's still a bit bloody or sometimes just wipe it with a tissue. Sometimes it still stings a bit if I get it not quite in the right place, but it's all ok. Certainly not as bad as (many, many years ago...) soaking my fingers in brine when trying to learn the guitar...
 
Done limited testing so far. I have tissues ready. Don't have plasters, only time I've needed them in over 16 years is when I've been to doctors or hospital.
I put the test strip in before finger pricking. Randomly hit the side of a finger, squeeze, then:
1 swear and try again
2 put on the end of the test strip. Swear, replace strip, try again
3 get anxus waiting for the reading.

On my lancet device there's a setting which can make a different in getting blood. I thinks it's how far it comes out when used.
 
I have a Glucomen Areo which replaced a previous meter. (Actually, I now have a spare, and a "spare" spare bought online after an unfortunate adventure when I realised the original was no longer in my jacket pocket. The original was returned from East Yorkshire Motor services lost property department, bless them.)
The lancets are finer than with the previous device, and it is now unusual to get an "error" due to too little blood, which is fortunate as I am testing quite frequently at present. The side of a finger tip, and the device set at 4 usually works for me.
Of course, I have dropped the meter, seen the batteries bounce into the bath,and retrieved one battery from the plughole using long tweezers...
I do seem to have accumulated several hundred lancets (ahem), but the locum pharmacists usually need dissuading from issuing biohazard waste boxes, etc. with each prescription.
 
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i use a good old fashioned hot water bottle to warm hands and increasingly flabby stomach before testing and injecting. seems a bit less uncomfortable.
 
I don't use plaster etc - I rinse the finger under the cold tap after testing, which stops the blood flow immediately. I was reading the blog of an Aussie bloke last night (google for 'painless pricks' iirc - someone linked it on the boards yesterday) - and he says he hardly ever changes the lancet. I've been changing mine about every 24hrs but may only do it once a week - of course if you do this, you have to make sure your hands really are clean. I keep an old Edwardian soft linen towel by the basin just for using before testing, now.

I too use a Glucomen Areo. The reason I don't push home the strip until I have the right amount of blood is because if you leave it too long pushed home, without giving it some blood, you can get an error message. I work over the basin - there's a tiled shelf above it where I put all the clobber. I've never got blood on my clothes. I usually prick my left hand fingers, and then pick up the monitor in my right hand, and slide the sensor up to the blood almost flat along the finger - that seems to encourage it to take up the blood better than doing it, eg, vertically
 
@Sara W a lot of people on this site don't change their lancets regularly which is not really a problem but I use a fresh one every time for the reason I'd never remember the last time I changed the blumming thing haha x
 
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