A friend of mine was recently told to start checking her BG - she’s pregnant, and I suppose her doctor is operating from an excess of caution.
I e-mailed her to see if there were any questions she had, since, though I don’t have gestational diabetes, I’ve at least gotten over a lot of the learning curve with the basics of managing diabetes.
She said that her sugars were all pretty much in range, but that her main problem was the actual drawing of blood. That was something I got over pretty quickly, since my choice was prick or go hypoglycemic 4 times a day, so I don’t have great advice for her other than use the side of your finger, make sure to wash your hands, adjust the death on your lancing device, and if you get a strange number, retest. As for psychological advice, I had none. (Perhaps because I’m already nuts?)
Anyone out there have anything else I should add? Thanks in advance!
Some people prefer not to see the needle, so you could suggest different lancing devices that obscure the needle. My favorite is the accu-check multiclix. I think it’s the least painful of all my devices and it has a drum, so she wouldn’t be able to see needles at all. Others prefer to have total control and don’t want to use a device at all. If she’s like that, tell her to use just the bare lancet.
I find it hard to sympathize with, but I have seen so many people who just can’t bear the thought of poking themselves. They sit with the needle hovering over their fingers like it’s a knife scene from Psycho. Perhaps having someone else do it for her would help her get over that psychological hurdle. She could learn to accept the pain of fingerpricking and eventually come to do it herself, knowing already what to expect.
Have her get one of the meters that can take blood from the forearm and leg. I haven’t poked my fingers in years. I can understand her anxiety- getting poked in the finger with a needle f*cking hurts!
Once the penlets replaced the original swing-arm or catapult contraption with the exposed lancet years ago I didn’t have any hesitation about testing. It looks like there are a few devices still around where the lancet can be seen, so if that is the problem maybe she can use one of the easy-clicking pen devices with the dial-a-depth feature - for whatever that’s worth.
But my number one bit of advice is to test on the sides of the fingers, not the tips. You can get enough blood but without all the nerve endings on the fingertips. I assume most people here do that already, but people new to fingersticks go straight for the sensitive areas on the fingers.
