[Diabetes-talk] testing difficulty

[Veronica Elsea]

Ah Mike! Lucky guy, you. First, I totally agree with you about 
alternate testing. Not only is it hard to know where you stick 
yourself, but many of the instructions require you to get blood in 
and stop when the clear cap is full. Yeah right!
But over the past 23 years of testing, I still have phases when it 
goes fairly easily and phases where it's frustration and a half. I'm 
in one of those right now. I had one night last week when it took me 
ten tries before I got a number. What's getting me now is that on 
some of my fingers I have these nice great lumps where I've been 
sticking myself. So when I try to miss that spot, it's really tough 
to get the lancing device to lie flat against my finger to prick deep 
enough to get blood. I'm getting into some pretty wild contortions 
trying to find a spot that works.
But the biggest area for experimentation is that of how long to milk 
your finger, how long to wait before connecting finger with strip. No 
matter how good we think we are, there is always an element of 
guessing involved. It's so easy to not keep your hand exactly level 
and then the blood can run down and not hit the strip. It's so easy 
to just not have any blood and waste time trying to hold the strip to 
your finger. Oh believe me, I'm not saying we can't do it. I am 
saying we need to be honest about things that can be a part of this 
process. That's the best way to not be done in by thinking everyone 
else is always perfect at it.
So if you're new at it, don't be afraid to experiment with timing, 
how you milk your finger and all of that. And know that anytime 
you're testing, there just might be another one of us out there 
struggling to get a stick done at the same time. And yes, at the 
moment I'm trying to make adjustments in my basal rates so I'm 
testing 6 to 8 times a day.
So hang in there and keep us posted.

Veronica
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