How to test your blood sugar

When it comes to managing diabetes, it is all about blood sugar. If your blood sugar (or “blood glucose”) levels get too high or too low, it can drastically alter your mood, your well-being, and even your long-term health. There are many ways to monitor blood sugar. Each person is different, so your doctor will review your unique case and recommend the right solution to help you monitor your blood sugar effectively.

When to test blood sugar

Checking your blood glucose as recommended can help you see how your meals, medications and activities affect your blood sugar. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends that you routinely test blood sugar levels to aid in managing your diabetes.1

Routine or daily blood glucose testing

For people using an insulin pump or insulin injections throughout the day, the ADA recommends testing multiple times daily. If you take another kind of medication, test your blood sugar level as often as your healthcare team recommends.

You and your healthcare team will determine when you should check your blood sugar based on your current health, age and level of activity, as well as the time of the day and other factors. They may suggest that you test your blood sugar at any of the following times:

  • Before each meal
  • 1 or 2 hours after a meal
  • Before a bedtime snack
  • In the middle of the night
  • Before physical activity, to see if you need a snack
  • During and after physical activity
  • If you think your blood sugar might be too high, too low or falling
  • When you’re sick or under stress

Gaining insights from routine blood glucose testing

Day-to-day blood sugar checks can give you a good idea of how you’re doing at this moment, and they can be reviewed overall to see the trends. They can help answer questions such as:

  • Are your medications working as they should?
  • How does the type or amount of food you eat affect your blood sugar?
  • How does activity or stress affect your blood sugar?

Structured blood glucose testing

Structured testing supports your routine or daily testing by giving you deeper, more targeted data to work from. It can help you determine if you’re in a safe range and problem-solve around how the things you do are connected to your blood sugar. You simply perform additional tests over a short period at specific times of the day.

Structured blood glucose testing can help you:

  • Discover how to best use your numbers
  • See how certain activities can affect on your blood sugar levels
  • Problem-solve around highs and lows
  • Identify blood sugar patterns
  • Work with your healthcare team to decide if any adjustments are needed in your insulin therapy or other areas of your diabetes management

How to test your blood sugar

To check your blood sugar level, gather your blood glucose meter, a test strip and your lancing device. See how to prepare the meter and test strip, lance your finger and get a reading using the Accu-Chek Blood Glucose Monitoring System by following the steps here:

The steps are similar for many meters, and generally look like this:

  1. Wash and dry your hands—using warm water may help the blood flow.2
  2. Turn on the meter and prepare a test strip as outlined in your owner’s booklet. Many Accu-Chek meters turn on automatically when a strip is inserted.
  3. Choose your spot—don’t check from the same finger all the time. Using the side of the fingertip may be less painful than the pads.
  4. Prepare the lancing device according to the user guide provided, then lance your fingertip or other approved site to get a drop of blood.3
  5. Touch and hold the test strip opening to the drop until it has absorbed enough blood to begin the test.
  6. View your test result and take the proper steps if your blood sugar is high or low, based on your healthcare professionals’ recommendations.
  7. Discard the used lancet properly.
  8. Record the results in a logbook, hold them in the meter’s memory or download to an app or computer so you can review and analyze them later.

 

1American Diabetes Association. Standards of medical care in diabetes—2016; Abridged for primary care providers [position statement]. Diabetes Care. 2016;34(1): 3-21. Available at: https://www.clinical.diabetesjournals.org/content/34/1/3.full.pdf. Accessed April 26, 2019.

2Joslin Diabetes Center. Tips for more pain-free blood glucose monitoring. Available at: https://www.joslin.org/info/tips_for_more_pain_free_blood_glucose_monito…. Accessed April 26, 2019.

3Talk with your healthcare professional before deciding if alternate site testing is right for you.