i will be doing alot more testing so my questions are:
-tuff getting sufficient sample with simple prick. can i squeeze right at the prick location as opposed to massaging entire finger to induce blood flow?
-it seems blood flow and sample easier to obtain in the afternoon. in the morning it is very hard. what gives?
-do drinking liquids surronding testing affect results? say a glass or 2 of water first thing in morning before testing.
Thinner lancets might help.
Try washing your hands with warm water,then use a small fine lancet. Hope this helps. Nancy
Warm hands have better blood flow. Wash with warm water or some other strategy to warm up first.
For some reason, the pinky often gives more blood.
Drinking water shouldn’t effect anything.
Check your lancet. Does it have a depth gauge? You might need deeper sticks if you have thick skin.
I seem to recall that rhythmic squeezing is better than massaging the finger which somehow effects accuracy.
I actually have 3 different meters, don’t ask. My favorite is my accu-check guide because it requires the least amount of blood. I think it would be great for children since it requires barely a drop. My Keto-mojo requires a ton and my FreeStyle is in the middle. They all test about the same, accuracy wise. Next meter, look for accuracy, but then ask the forum about how much blood is needed.
I also love my accu-check Fast Clix lancet. It has 11 depth settings, a thin lance, the lancets are in a barrel that rotates, and I can easily use it with either hand. I hate to admit it, but I probably use the same lancet for about a month before switching to the next one in the barrel. Much less garbage and cheaper. Just alcohol before using and then swipe the barrel.
I use the predecessor to the Fast Clix, the Multiclix. It uses a similar drum. I rotate lancets even less than you. It’s so easy – I don’t have a good excuse, except it continues to give me a good blood sample every time. I do have the depth set to the deepest setting. I just dialed up a fresh lancet.
I would run my whole hand under warm water, gently squeezing the fingers while doing so. Turn off water, shake hand vigorously a couple times. Relax and prick finger. Often the only way to get the blood flowing—especially first thing in the morning!..It’s a matter of circulation—which can vary widely over the course of the day’s activities…
I agree that cold hand are the worst. If my hands are cold I know it’s not going to give up the blood easily, so I wash with warm water, dry completely and let the hand hang for a few minutes. I also use one finger the whole day and just rotate a different finger each day. That gives each finger 9 days with no poking. Might help if calluses are an issue.
Much of your routine is Ditto here, Sally! I remember from one book I read my first year (when I basically emptied the library of every D book they had), the author talking about his Blood Testing Dance, which involved lots of shaking and vibrating his hands and gradually moving into his whole torso, swinging his arms about in big arcs—Anything to get the blood flowing!..
I have learned to pumice those calluses as required—I am a silly superstitious sort and have 3 favorite fingers on my left hand—I rotate through them! LOL…Judith in Portland…
I love my pumice stone too! I use it everyday on all my fingers and on my feet!
And it’s a good thing America Funniest Home Video is not taping us as we flap around trying to get blood to flow.
Now there’s an idea for a segment I bet they never thought of!..
I’m a whimp. Mine is set to 1.5-2.5 depending on which meter I’m using. I switch if these settings don’t give me enough blood. Could probably change less often
I’ve fingersticked a lot over the years. Long ago, I decided to protect my index fingers and thumbs from finger pokes. I wanted the finer sensations for these key digits. Now that I’m trusting my CGM more for dosing, I’m only testing about five times per day. For years I was averaging 12-15 times/day.
There are some days even weeks when mosquitos say don’t even try with this dude.
and I’m down from 15-17 tests per day, to 6.1, thanks to Dexcom’s accuracy. 
Ain’t it great?
I got so used to frequent fingersticks that I didn’t really see it as much of a burden. My habit did most of the work. When I decided to cut back closer to five per day, I didn’t feel a lot of relief as you might think. I’m still giving my attention to my diabetes numbers; it’s just that I’m not using that attention to fingerstick now. It is an improvement.
It’s not so much the burden, as it is that fingersticking (even 15x/day) doesn’t provide the kind of fine control that a CGM can (providing that one looks at the screen often enough, and has alarms set correct, and it’s an accurate CGM). Clearly, my 100’s of thousands of fingersticks I’ve done since the 1980’s (some without meters), hasn’t be able to provide the level of control that I’m now enjoying via CGM.
Yeah, the CGM did change the game. All those fingersticks did provide a certain level of education, however. Shortly after I was diagnosed, I was shocked to see the high 200s, low 300s fingersticks after I blissfully ate my favorite morning bowl of cereal. I thought switching from Corn Pops (contained added sugar) to Shredded Wheat (no added sugar) was all that I needed to comply with my new regimen! Fingersticks disabused me of that notion.
LOL. I don’t do cereal. Not that I don’t like it. Just can’t do it. “Back in the day”, Rice Krispies with a TON of sugar, and sometimes blueberrries, strawberries, banana, or apples. Also Sugar Frosted Flakes. Remember Tony the Tiger? Perhaps I killed my pancreas do to all the sugar I ingested for about my first 30 years. I was a huge soda, cake, pie lover. If it was sweet, I loved it.