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Hi

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Lorna McIlwrath

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Have been Type 2 for a number of yrs but due to complications with recent surgery I'm now on insulin as well as medformin. Still getting used to blood sugar testing & insulin pens. I have found that I get different results using finger on both hands. Is this common? X
 
Yes, I get slightly different results using different fingers.
 
… and if you tested again with a different strip but more blood out of the same hole on the same meter immediately after the first test - you'd probably get a different answer too!

As long as there isn't a significant difference don't worry - they only have to be accurate to within about 10% anyway.
 
Hi Lorna and welcome to the forum 🙂

Yes, your bg levels are fluctuating all the time, so as Jenny has said, you will be likely to get minor variations with every test.
In addition, things such as insufficient blood applied to the test strip, smearing of the blood on the test strip, sweet substances left on your hands, dirt on the strip, wet fingers.... could all cause a variation.

So it can be better to focus on the bigger picture or any major changes, highs or lows, rather than focus with each result individually.

How long since you started the insulin? How are you finding the rest of it?
 
Hannah DUK said:
Hi Lorna and welcome to the forum 🙂

Yes, your bg levels are fluctuating all the time, so as Jenny has said, you will be likely to get minor variations with every test.
In addition, things such as insufficient blood applied to the test strip, smearing of the blood on the test strip, sweet substances left on your hands, dirt on the strip, wet fingers.... could all cause a variation.

So it can be better to focus on the bigger picture or any major changes, highs or lows, rather than focus with each result individually.

How long since you started the insulin? How are you finding the rest of it?
Click to expand...
Hannah DUK said:
Hi Lorna and welcome to the forum 🙂

Yes, your bg levels are fluctuating all the time, so as Jenny has said, you will be likely to get minor variations with every test.
In addition, things such as insufficient blood applied to the test strip, smearing of the blood on the test strip, sweet substances left on your hands, dirt on the strip, wet fingers.... could all cause a variation.

So it can be better to focus on the bigger picture or any major changes, highs or lows, rather than focus with each result individually.

How long since you started the insulin? How are you finding the rest of it?
Click to expand...

Only been on insulin 4 wks due to extremely high sugar levels & complications during surgery Inc ketoacidosis.
When I did the blood sugar test I checked a finger on both hands. There was a 2 point difference. Did as I was told, cleaned the side of the finger just with water. Just wondered if this was normal?
 
I think it depends on what the readings were. A 2 point difference is quite a lot if your blood sugar is now in range - eg if one finger is 4.0 and one is 6.0 that suggests there's a problem with the meter or (more likely) with one of the strips, and you might need to talk to your diabetes team about it because you don't want to be getting readings of 6.0 when you're really 4.0. But if your blood sugar's still quite high, 2 points is not be such a big difference, in which case yes, that's normal - if one finger's 14.0 and one's 16.0, for instance, I don't think it would be too surprising!
 
If you find that you are continuously getting bigger discrepancies as you have mentioned, you could get the machine calibrated to check it's accuracy? This can be done usually in a pharmacy or by a DSN. If you find that you are repeatedly getting a big difference in results (perhaps you could do a few tests to see if that time was a one-off) - then it could be a fault with the machine in which case you can contact the manufacturer who will usually replace faulty monitors for you.
 
Welcome to the forum Lorna from a fellow T2.
 
Hi Lorna and welcome.
With each of my test kits I have had a control solution, with which I could test the upper and lower end of the accuracy. I got these by contacting the manufacturer each time.
 
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