This took some thought for me as there are so many things that you go through on a daily basis as a diabetic and routine check-ups and blood work. I wish I could say that I did everything perfectly, but what fun would that be? I like to live on the edge a little. That lancet…I change it when I change out my pump set. I skip breakfast sometimes. I even have dessert! I’m such a bad ■■■.
However, the one thing I do almost every single time I test is I wash my hands or use an alcohol swab. I found out the hard way that it does make a difference. Once I had tested my blood sugar when I handled food that was sweet. Although I had tested a short time before with an in range result, this time I had a result that was in the 200s. I was shocked at how my blood sugar sky rocketed without eating a morsel. So I remembered my CDE telling me to make sure my hands were clean before I tested. Sometimes we get lazy in our testing steps and although I constantly wash or wipe my hands while preparing dinner, it wasn’t good enough. So, to make sure the high result wasn’t an error in testing or my part, I decided to wash my hands and test again. This time the result was closer to the one that was in range from a short time before.
Had I just accepted a high result and taken insulin to correct it, I could have had a severe low. This experience made me realize that washing my hands is important to getting accurate results. How many times have I had a blood glucose result that wasn’t as accurate as it should have been? How many times would that have affected the insulin I would have taken or the food I ate?
I know that accuracy is important to me. I’ve always searched for the blood glucose meter that would give me the most accurate results. Now it only seems imperative to me that I do my part to maintain accuracy and clean my hands before I test. It’s one good thing I do.