Blood Glucose Meters Or Urine Test Strips - Which is Best to Monitor Your Diabetes
By John Ngijseh

For every diabetic monitoring your own blood glucose (sugar) levels can be vitally important in controlling your diabetes. The current treatments in diabetes whether medicines or diet focus on trying to keep blood sugar levels as close to normal as possible.

There are two main ways to monitor the body's glucose levels, testing for "blood" glucose and testing for "urine" glucose. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. Which method you choose depends on what your doctor advises you.

Blood Glucose Meters

Testing blood glucose levels has become very simple and very accessible thanks to a whole range of blood glucose meters on the market. Checking glucose in this way is the most accurate method. This is especially important for patients with Type 1 Diabetes (Insulin dependent) and some patients with Type 2 Diabetes requiring insulin. This is because some these patients can make adjustments to their insulin dose depending on the blood glucose test results. Also patients with diabetes may experience very low blood glucose levels called "hypoglycaemia" or very high blood glucose levels called "hyperglycaemia". Often there are signs and symptoms of both. Using a blood glucose meter to get an exact reading can help reassure or confirm that action must be taken.

How Does A Blood Glucose Meter Work?

The 2 main meters on the market at present are Accu-chek Aviva and One Touch Ultra. Both meters use the same basic principle. A blood sample is taken usually from the finger using a finger pricking device. The sample is placed on a specially coated test strip which is then inserted into the blood glucose meter. Within a minute the meter will give you a result. The main drawback of this method is that it does require pricking your finger each time to take a blood sample. This for some can be nuisance. However, with recent advances in meter technology the amount of blood required for Accu-chek Aviva and One Touch Ultra is minimal. This in turn leads to less pain when pricking the finger.

Urine Testing

Urine strips have the advantage of being pain free but the disadvantage of not bring as accurate as a blood glucose meter.

For some, urine testing is a more then adequate method to test glucose especially for diabetics who do not need exact blood glucose levels. Glucose can take time to appear in the urine. Thus always use a blood glucose meter when testing for low blood glucose levels (hypoglycaemia) as it will give you an accurate reading at that time.

How To Use Urine Testing Strips

The main two makes of glucose testing strips are Clinistix and Diastix. Click on Clinistix to learn more about how to use the urine strips.

Interpreting Your Results

How you interpret your results depends very much on the goals your doctor has set out for you and what you are testing for. A key point to remember is that blood glucose levels will be affected by food and diabetic medication.

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We also have some great articles on our site on diabetes. If you would like to know more about diabetes screening then visit the link.

Blood Glucose Testing - 6 Tips to Make Testing Pain Free
By John Ngijseh

Did you know there are 6 simple steps that you can take to make testing your blood glucose a lot less painful?

At the moment, to accurately check our blood glucose the only way to do this, is to prick our fingers and check the resulting blood for glucose.

Pain is caused by the penetration of the lancet into the skin. The deeper the lancet penetrates the skin the more painful the testing but the more blood is provided for testing. If you need more blood for testing then the lancet will need to penetrate deeper.

The tips below focus on ways to get more blood out when you prick your finger with a lancet so that it does not need to penetrate the skin deeply and thus makes it a lot less painful!

1) Wash your hands with soap and warm water - this will help keep the testing site clean and help dilate the blood vessels in the fingers to increase blood flow.

2) Massage your finger downwards to the tip of your finger - this will help push blood towards the tip of your finger so that when it is pricked there is plenty of blood there ready to come out.

3) Have your testing hand pointing downwards below your waist - blood will flow more easily when following gravity downwards.

4) Set your lancing device - lancing devices have different settings to pierce the skin at different depths. If you use the tips in this article you should find that you will be able to use a lower setting but still have enough blood for testing. Try changing the settings to find the right level.

5) Select the right meter - different blood glucose meters require different amounts of blood to carry out a blood glucose testing. The less blood needed the less painful testing will be. Choose a meter that requires only a small testing sample such as the Accu-chek Aviva which needs only 0.6 microliter

6) Alternate your fingers - don't use the same finger over and over again. You have 8 fingers distribute the testing evenly. You'll find your fingers will recover much faster and blood flow will be better.

We have 3 more tips to help you reduce the pain of the testing on our site visit,
Less Painful Testing. Visit the article to learn more and sign up to receive similar articles.

This article was brought to you by Glucosemeters4u.com. We specialise in products to help with diabetic testing from blood glucose meters to test strips, lancets and blood pressure monitors.

Diabetes Testing Supplies
By Janet Jhon

Diabetes testing supplies are used to monitor and regulate blood glucose levels. Checking blood sugar levels regularly helps diabetics to manage their diabetes effectively. Blood sugar testing becomes easier and convenient with various diabetes testing products available in the market. Moreover, you get the results in less than a minute.

Diabetes Testing Supplies: Options

To manage or detect diabetes, you require diabetes testing supplies, such as diabetic glucose test strips, blood glucose monitors and urinalysis test strips.

• Diabetic or glucose test strips: These testing products are placed inside a glucose meter to determine the sugar levels in a particular blood sample. You can prick the surface of your finger using a lancet to get a drop of blood. Most lancets allow you to set a particular depth at which the needle penetrates your skin. This depth setup feature prevents damage to important nerves.

• Blood glucose monitors: Different types of glucose monitors are available, including those with self-enclosed spools of strips called test strip drums and those that require manual insertion of strips. The elderly and children, who have reduced motor skills, can use self-enclosed ones, because these are loaded automatically and do not require user intervention. You should follow the instructions carefully if your monitor requires entering a code whenever you open a new box of strips. You will find the code chip in the strip bottle. If you enter the wrong code or if your monitor is miscoded, you get wrong results. If you are not comfortable with entering the codes, you can opt for monitors that load automatically.

• Embrace meter: The latest diabetes supplies range is able to provide the most accurate results within six seconds. It can also display an average of your blood glucose levels over a period of time, such as a week, a couple of weeks or a month.

Diabetes Testing Supplies: Insurance Coverage

Medicare covers test strips, blood sugar monitors and lancets for people enrolled for Medicare Part B. However, there are limits to the amount of supplies one can use. Medicaid covers blood sugar test strips and blood glucose monitors. Medicaid also covers insulin syringes if you need them. Most managed health insurance plans also cover diabetes supplies.

To purchase diabetes supplies at reduced prices, you can opt for generic test strips or strips sold by third parties. However, ensure that the test strips you buy are compatible with your glucose monitor. Suppliers may also offer glucose monitors free of cost when customers shop for other diabetes supplies.

Diabetes People's Healthstore offers highly accurate diabetic test strips and other supplies at wholesale prices. All diabetes testing supplies offered by the company are FDA approved.

We offer a wide variety of high quality diabetes testing supplies at the lowest price. Contact us at 1-877-888-9659.

Blood Glucose Testing Errors - 8 Tips on Avoiding Mistakes
By John Ngijseh

We all make mistakes and you won't be surprised to hear that people that test their blood glucose also make mistakes. We've compiled a list from other people's experiences of the most common mistakes when testing your blood glucose which often result in error messages. After reading these errors hopefully you won't make them!

1) Using out of date strips - test strips have expiry dates just like food and if you use test strips after their expiry date you may get an error message on your meter or worse a wrong reading without knowing it.

Make sure before testing that the test strips are in date.

2) Wrong test strips code - most test strips come with an individual code on the bottle/packaging. This code must match the code displayed on your glucose meter. If the codes don't match you will get error messages.

To avoid this problem check every new box of test strips has the same code as shown on the glucose meter. If not, change the code on the meter.

3) Re-using a lancet - this is a common mistake. Re-using a lancet could affect the accuracy of your reading and could be very painful.

Every time you test your blood glucose, use a fresh new lancet.

4) Uncapped test strips - test strips need to be kept capped in their container. If the container is uncapped for too long then this can affect the accuracy of the test strips.

Always cap your strips after use. If you find a test strip container that was not closed properly or you're not sure how long the strips had been uncapped for, then replace the test strips.

5) Poor storage conditions - test strips need to be stored in a dark, cool, dry place. If they are not, this can affect the accuracy of the strip. A bathroom or a window sill would not be good places to store test strips as bathrooms generally have a lot of water in the air and sunlight exposure on the window sill will degrade the strips.

6) Meter accuracy - the best way to check your meter is still accurate is to do a control check. Aim to do a control check at least every 3 months and perhaps each time you use a new box of test strips.

Always remember control solutions have a 3 month expiry, so after 3 months make sure you replace them. This applies to all control solutions from the one touch ultra control solution to the accu-chek aviva control solution. Click on the link to learn more about the control solutions.

7) Order of testing - some meters, such as the one touch ultra range, require you to put the strips into the meter first then place the blood sample onto the strip, other meters ask you to place the blood sample on the test strip first then place the strip into the meter.

Make sure you know which order your meter needs you to test with otherwise they will be an error message on your meter screen.

Meter units - glucose meters can measure in 2 units, mmol/l or mg/dl. Which units your meter measures in does not really matter as long as YOU know what units it measures. There are meters available which can measure in both mg/dl and mmol/l. The risk here is if you accidentally change the units and you do not realise there could be a huge difference in the actual readings.

Always look on your meter screen to see what units your reading is in. All meters will show you the units. Ideally, if you have meter which measures only in one unit it would be best.

All the meters at Glucosemeters4u.com measure only in one unit, mmol/l.

Hopefully, you can learn from these common mistakes and avoid them!

This article was brought to you by John Ngijseh from the Glucosemeters4u.com team

Glucosemeters4u.com strives to be an expert in diabetic products and is a great resource to learn more about diabetes. Visit the links within the article to learn more about our site.

We have some great article and learning resources, why not check out our article on types of diabetes.

Accurate Blood Glucose Testing - Be Confident
By Lee Dunn

You are a diabetic and you have been given a brand new glucose monitor to test your blood sugar. You want to be able to check your blood sugars properly to ensure that you get the most accurate readings. You have come to the right place.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Lee and I am a health care professional working in the diabetes education field. I am here to give you guidelines on blood sugar (glucose) monitoring. These guidelines can be applied to whatever blood glucose monitor you are using. This article is part of a series of information articles that answer the most common questions asked by people who are living with diabetes.

Self Monitoring Of Blood Sugar (Blood Test)

There are many different blood glucose monitors out there on the market. It will be up to you and your health care professional to decide which blood glucose monitor will best suit your needs. Your health care professional will also determine which blood sugar testing schedule will be best for you. Therefore, I will not be talking about testing schedules or individual monitors. Instead, I will be giving you some general guidelines in how to test your blood sugar. These guidelines are useful no matter what blood sugar monitor you may have.

Blood Glucose Monitoring Guidelines

Here are the general guidelines:

- Wash your hands with soap and water prior to taking your blood sugar. Make sure you rinse your hands well with water. The reason for this is because if you have any sugar residue on your fingers, it can dramatically affect the results because the blood sample is so small.

- Ensure that your skin is dry, as moisture on the hands can also affect your results.

- Alcohol should not normally be used to clean the site because it can cause drying and cracking of the skin. However, if you do choose to use alcohol, be sure to dry the skin thoroughly afterwards. If you don't do this, it may affect your results.

- Make sure that the test strips are fresh. Use them within three months of opening the container, as stale or outdated strips may not give you accurate results.

- Keep your test strips in the original container. They are sensitive to light and humidity.

- Make sure that the monitor is coded to the current test strip lot number (some monitors are self-coding).

- Make sure that the lancet is sharp and that the lancing device is set at the correct depth so that a good amount of blood sample can be obtained without having to squeeze the testing site.

- Warm your finger by massaging or holding your hand under warm water so that the blood comes to the surface of your skin before testing. Remember to dry your hand well prior to the actual test.

- Lance the outer side of your fingertip.

- Lower your hand after lancing your finger. Allow a large enough drop of blood to form naturally. This may take 5 to 10 seconds. Try not to squeeze the site as this will alter your results.

- Hold the drop of blood to the test strip end for a few seconds to ensure that the test strip is full. If this is not done, the monitor may give a false low result or no result at all.

- Test your monitor regularly with the control solution that is provided with your monitor.

Blood Sugar Monitor - A Powerful Tool

I hope that this article has been helpful in giving you information on how to check your blood sugar using a blood sugar monitor. Remember that this information that you have been given can be applied to whatever blood glucose monitor you are using. Use your blood sugar monitor every day. It is an essential tool in your arsenal to manage your diabetes. The power is in your hands.

Lee Dunn is a healthcare professional working in the Diabetes Education field. She has created web resources to educate those that are looking for answers to their questions on diabetes.

For a sample of her information pages, check out: http://www.squidoo.com/self-monitoring-of-blood-sugar

Lee also publishes a free diabetes information newsletter. To sign up for her free newsletter, follow this link to her sign-up page: http://bestdiabetesonline.com/Contact_us.html