How Can I Best Control My Diabetes Using Finger Stick Monitoring?

— -- Question: How can I best control my diabetes using finger stick Monitoring?

Answer: Finger stick monitoring is the way a person can know what their blood sugar is at the moment, so if you think you might be low for example you can verify that by checking your blood sugar and seeing is it under 60 or 70. If you think you're high you can also verify that, but we like to have people check also on a routine, regular basis, and that starts with the morning blood sugar, before the person has eaten. It also should be done later in the day, we like to start with pre-meal blood sugars, so before lunch or before supper, and also at bedtime. You can also check sometimes after a meal and see how high you go realizing that you will go higher after a meal.

But one of the most important things is that checking your blood sugar really is only useful if you do something about it, if you learn something from it, so that if you see for example that you are always going low in the mid-afternoon, then you should get in touch with your healthcare professional, and ask, "What should I do about this? I am always going low in the mid-afternoon." If you find, on the other hand, that you're going high at bedtime then you may want to make treatment adjustments in your supper, in your amount of medication before you eat supper, for example, in order to treat the high at bedtime. So seeing the patterns in your blood-sugar testing, I think, is the most important fact to know about, to understand. And doing something about it is the way to manage your diabetes better.

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