Spent $60 on a blood glucose monitor and it took me 2 weeks to realize I was pricking my finger wrong the whole time.

I kept getting these wild readings that made no sense until I caught a random comment online saying you gotta squeeze from the base not the tip. Anyone else mess up the basics for way too long?

3 comments

3 Comments

wendy_lee482d ago

Maybe squeezing from the tip is actually better for some people... I've read that you get more consistent blood flow that way and less chance of bruising. My grandma has been pricking her fingers for 15 years and she never squeezes from the base, just does a quick light squeeze at the tip and gets perfect readings every time. The instructions that come with these things are so vague anyway, half the time they say one thing and the online forums say another. If your readings were truly wild and inconsistent, there's probably a deeper issue with the monitor itself or how you're calibrating it. Plus some people just have naturally higher or lower blood flow in their hands depending on temperature or time of day.

wendy_lee482d ago

Oh man, my friend did the same thing with a continuous glucose monitor. She was about to return it before her sister casually mentioned you're not supposed to jab the side of your finger.

wader712d ago

Figured out the same thing with my thermostat last week. It's funny how the simple stuff nobody tells you is what messes everything up, and you're right @wendy_lee48, the manuals always leave out the one detail you actually need.