Self-blood glucose monitoring is an important part of diabetes management. Finger blood collection through blood glucose meter to monitor blood glucose has gradually been accepted by people and has become an important part of daily life of diabetes patients.
However, the pain caused by repeated finger pricking and the fear brought to diabetic patients often make patients feel at a loss and even have resistance, unwilling to insist on blood sugar monitoring.
Is there a what method to relieve this pain? Today Dr. Clove will teach you a few practical methods.
1. Choose the appropriate blood glucose meter
On the premise of comprehensively considering accuracy, price and personal special needs, choose a blood glucose meter that requires less blood collection.
The larger the amount of blood collected, This means that more blood needs to be collected each time, so it may also be more painful. Choosing a blood glucose meter that is very convenient to drop blood, such as a blood glucose meter with automatic blood sucking function, or a blood glucose meter that can use blood from other parts of the body other than fingers to detect blood, may give you more choices in blood glucose monitoring and reduce pain.
2. Choose the appropriate blood collection depth
At present, the most common use in families is to use blood collection pens to prick fingers. The general blood collection pens are set with 5 different depth gears. The larger the number, the deeper the depth, which is generally more likely to cause pain.
We can choose according to the thickness of our finger skin. Generally, the depth of blood collection for light physical labor or retirees is 2 ~ 3. Heavy physical labor or abnormal thickening of finger skin can be appropriately increased.
We can try different depths and use the shallowest gear as much as possible, but we can tie up enough blood volume, so the pain will be less.
3. Preparation activities before blood collection
(1) Clean your hands, keep your hands warm and have good peripheral blood circulation, so as to ensure sufficient blood loss during blood collection. Warm water can increase blood circulation of fingers, especially in cold seasons, rinse your hands with warm water to avoid blood collection when your hands are cold as much as possible;
(2) The arm on the same side of the blood collection site naturally droops for a moment, and then massages the blood collection site; To ensure the success of one-time blood collection and less pain;
(3) Other methods that can be tried when necessary:
1) The arm is naturally drooping, taking the wrist joint as the fulcrum, and gently shaking the hand for more than ten times, with light movements and no excessive force, so as not to consume energy and reduce blood sugar value;
2) Massage or press from the palm or finger root to the fingertip to make part of the blood collect on the fingertip. The fingertip has a slight numbness feeling, and the pain feeling can also be relieved. Temporary relative congestion is conducive to blood collection. After relaxation, the blood flow at the fingertip is relatively reduced to restore its original state, which is conducive to hemostasis.
4. Selection of blood collection site
(1) Avoid pricking your fingertips
Fingertips are rich in nerve endings, especially sensitive, and feel more pain than other parts of the finger. The side of the finger, especially the ring finger and little finger, has less nerve distribution and is a good place to collect blood. Everyone can also try more to find other parts where they feel less pain.
(2) Frequently change fingers to collect blood,
As far as possible, spread the damage to every part, instead of repeating it many times in one or a few parts. Remember the last blood collection site and avoid this site when taking blood next time.
You can take turns to replace or convenient and easy to remember, and your fingers take blood alternately. Try not to take blood from the finger that already feels pain, and wait until the pain improves before changing the finger to take blood.
(3) Other parts that can be replaced
The two pieces of meat under the big and small thumbs of the palm are medically called the thenar muscles and hypothenar muscles, and the forearm nerves are less distributed. The pain during blood collection is lower than that of the fingertips, and the accuracy of blood sugar is better. If necessary, these parts can be considered for blood sugar measurement.
Need to remind: Not all blood glucose meters can check the blood sugar of these parts, pay attention to carefully check the instructions of blood glucose meters and blood glucose test paper.
Especially when the blood sugar concentration changes rapidly, such as after meals, after insulin injection, after physical exercise, etc., these parts may not reflect this change of blood sugar quickly, so finger blood sugar should be checked under these circumstances.
5. Lancet should not be reused
To understand the correct use of the lancet, a new lancet should be used every time. If the lancet is used more times, it will become blunt and lead to aggravation of pain.
Step 6 Ask your family for help
If conditions permit, it is best to ask your family to help you check your blood sugar. After all, it takes more courage to prick yourself.
STEP 7 Maintain a good mindset
The pain caused by measuring blood sugar sometimes comes not only from measuring blood sugar itself, but also from the nervous or anxious psychology of diabetic patients.
Moderately adjust one’s mood and mentality and reduce one’s psychological burden, which can not only relieve pain, but also affect blood sugar through endocrine and neuroimmune regulatory systems and other ways to achieve the purpose of controlling blood sugar and improving the disease.
Summary
I hope these methods can not only help everyone relieve the pain of blood sugar measurement, but also help everyone to build up confidence in long-term blood sugar monitoring. I believe that with the efforts of specialists and yourself, we can definitely control blood sugar and reduce diabetic complications.
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