Diabetic Recipes
Olivia asked me last night when she was going to have her next appointment at Joslin. I wasn't sure, but told her it should be coming up soon. (Must check into that, actually.) She said she wanted to ask the doctor something. When I asked her what she wanted to know, she said she wanted to talk about alternate site testing.
We've done this in the past, without much success. But looking at her fingers last night, I told her she really needed to try again. Her fingertips are mangled - they're covered with black dots and she said they really, really hurt.
Part of the problem is that she tests right on the pads of her fingers rather than on the sides. The endo has told her repeatedly to stop doing that, but Olivia doesn't listen. Now, though, she's having a lot of pain and she's going to have to do that.
She has a friend who tests on the fatty part of the palm that's right under the thumb. I suggested she try there. She's done arm testing in the past but it's really hard to get blood that way. Plus, I've heard from a lot of people that the results aren't going to be as accurate as a finger poke will be.
So we're going to give it a try. I'm hoping the lancing device we have will be sufficient - she just used the bog standard one that came with her meter. Hopefully this will help alleviate some of the discomfort she's having.
It might help if we changed the lancet a little more frequently, too. Whoops.
I use accu-chek Aviva and the little cartridge lancet and customer service called one day. I dound out that not rotating my lancets is what they said causes the little black dots but that hasn't helped. I do stay away from the pads of the fingers and use the sides.
For alternate test sites that are approved with her meter, check the insert that comes with the strips. It should tell you what other sites you can use. I've used the fatty parts of the palm (under the pinky and thumb) and have heard they are as accurate as finger tips. I almost always just use my arms though. The results are pretty close.
I understand Olivia's dilema. I tested using alternate sites for a long time, after tiring of finger pain. I did a meager experiment a while back though,
http://stickitdiabetes.wordpress.com/2007/04/15/we-experiment/
and decided fingers were the best way to go. Maybe a good compromise would be to use alternate sites for a couple weeks, giving finger tips time to heal, and then going back to them.