Hey another question for y’all. I just got a genteel finger poker and I’ve been poking my palms for the past week because my fingers are wore out…well this evening I decided to try out the difference of blood sugars from various locations.
Finger tips-94
finger tip opposite hand-104
Palm-134
Forearm-150
Has anyone else experienced this?? I feel those variations are pretty dang significant and now I feel like I need to stick to my fingers for the sake of accuracy and safety.
Generally if your blood sugar has been rock stable for 30-40 minutes or so alternates sites should give comparable readings (ok, within +/- 20% error). But if your blood sugar has been changing then sites such as forearm, upper arm, thigh, calf will lag the readings that you take from your fingertips and palms. I believe this is due to the rapid blood circulation present in your hands.
In your case if you average the readings from your fingertips and your palm your average was 110 mg/dl. And roughly any readings between 90-130 mg/dl are within the +/-20%. If your blood sugar was coming down from a meal that would explain why your forearm read higher.
I don’t do alternate site testing as it just adds to the general confusion. Sometimes I’ll take multiple readings from the same finger and average to do my CGM calibrations.
I’d read previously that the alternate sites tended to have a much lower level of accuracy than fingertips, so I’ve never bothered to even try them. I guess if my hands had been burned or something and I wasn’t able to use the fingers, the alternate site testing would be better than nothing before insulin dosing, but under normal circumstances, I’d rather have the better accuracy of the fingertips even though they do sometimes get sore from all the jabs.
I do my hands all fingers except my pointing and thumbs. I take readings from both sides of each finger as well. And when my blood sugar is stable on my CGM i do notice that my right hand will be about 10 lower than my left. And it’s usually 5 to 10 value difference.
So when you blood sugar is very very stable. Take readings on either hand. And places that have bee ok’d to take save blood sugar readings. And compare. Then check again another day to verify the same thing. This will give you a good baseline on what to use to evaluate your insulin need.
I can’t believe I’ve never thought to try that. 110 Left hand middle finger, 121 right hand middle finger. I usually test my left hand but give blood for labs out of my right arm.
I always take a finger stick right after my labs to compare with my serum glucose. Next month I’ll compare both fingers with the lab, and the following month I’ll ask for the alternate arm. I wish I read this earlier as I had my a1c draw 5 hours ago.
I had a variation yesterday that confuses me. I tested to calibrate a new sensor. I used my left hand using my middle finger and ring finger. 1st reading was 90 2nd reading was 75 so I did a 3rd reading and that was 86.
I am new to this. I do not have diabetes I do have sever hypoglycemia that I have everyday. My pancreas, liver and adipose tissue are damaged from a to a tumor I had.
I have been wearing a CGM per my endo’s orders since June. I haven’t really had a variation like this. Any thoughts or suggestion please. I used the 1st and 3rd test numbers for the calibration.