This seems like a subject that’s hardly worth arguing about. But I will give my two cents.
I do test in public but I do it discreetly. If someone objected I would try to respect them but will not run off to the bathroom or some other undesirable place.
Sam19, I hate to break it to you, but exam rooms are not sterile.
And what world do you live in where people who test their BG “are in fact getting small amounts of blood on virtually everything you touch afterward and therefore putting strangers at an elevated potential risk whether you have any diseases or not.” Because it sure ain’t the world on which everyone posting here lives. I guess I missed the arrival of the hazmat team the last time someone at a restaurant got a nosebleed… You need to read up on the amount of infection-laden blood needed to make a damned bit of difference. One reason physicians and ER staff wear gloves is because they are dealing with sharps while being around patients’ blood which introduces the risk of getting infected blood on the sharp and then sticking themselves. For the life of me, I just can’t recall the last time a PWD juggled their lancet or invited the nearest person to play toss with their used lancet after testing their BG. When a PWD tests, THEY are the ones holding the sharps. According to your logic, everyone on earth should walk around wearing gloves and masks at all times on the off chance that someone gets a paper cut or a nosebleed or a skinned knee.
So do you wear gloves in an exam room when there is small amount of a patients blood involved in whatever you’re doing? Even if not using sharps? Even when you have the patients records in front of you and can be almost entirely certain their blood is perfectly safe?
No, actually I don’t. And I’d bet on the fact that most physicians don’t run to the nearest glove dispenser to hurriedly don a pair of gloves the second they see a patient with a bleeding cut that might require suturing. I wait until I set up a sterile field, then glove up with sterile gloves before beginning to suture in order to protect my patient from further risk of infection. I do, however, glove up with non-sterile gloves before every rectal exam.
Enough of this, in my opinion, me testing or treating in public in certain instances potentially makes others around me squeamish and uncomfortable-- so I don’t do it. If you don’t feel that way or don’t care, then go right ahead and do whatever the hell you want. I frankly could care less what any of you do. I don’t test or treat in public because that’s what I consider appropriate. I do not feel entitled to potentially make others uncomfortable when I can so easily completely avoid it with the very slightest bit of effort. To each their own.
And your mother wears army boots! Grow up…
Thank you.
(Small-minded, entitled, rude me, needing to have the last word…)
No problem… It’ll be a more productive conversation without me that way you can only have to talk to people who agree with you 100%. And you all can praise each other for the courage of exposing your bodily fluids to others and reaffirm your entitlement to do so regardless of situation… And anyone who’s put off by it or made uncomfortable by it can just go to hell… That’s progress folks, celebrate it without me.
What part of “needing to have the last word” don’t you understand?
(The nerve of some people…)
yes i see where all of you are coming yes no one wants to come into contact with a another person blood or any bodily stuff for that matter the whole thing is how people see it good or bad it’s about a lesson taught sometimes people need to open there eyes and learn why a person needs to do something
Right on shellyj! I am more worried about a sneeze or cough that floats into my space or even worse - unwashed hands that touch any of my stuff. In a public environment for sure. At my home or my friends and family home at least I know where my people have been. I sure hope that all the diabetics in the world are not going to end up having to go to a special “test booth” or even a “bolus booth” to figure out how to bolus for dinner! That line is going to be long long long.
Whenever someone tells me “OMG I have a fear of blood” I just reply “My fear of death is greater” and I check/give a shot anyway. Its not like its gushing or even dripping. It’s a single dot of red on my finger. They can just suck it up and deal with it.