Monday, July 11, 2011

Favorite Pricking Spots

So I spent a fair portion of my time with my CDE talking about alternate sites for my infusion set, but it hasn't really occured to me that I need to be rotating my finger stick sites around.

I'm the very first to admit how poorly I managed my diabetes for years. 1 stick every once in a while to make sure I was... alive.

Now that I've gotten over my D-burnout and into a regular pattern of checking my bgs and remember my boluses, I've realized that my finger stick pattern has changed. MY favorite finger spot was the right side of my right ring finger. A few years ago the finger looked awful and gouged. For some reason, my new favorite finger has become my right middle finger. It's not in as bad shape as my ring finger was but it's getting there.

I've started adapting to using my left hand a little more often now, and I know that you can pretty much stick yourself where ever you think you can manage to strike blood (palm, forearm, etc.) I remember being not terribly shocked when the pamphlet inside the pricker device said not to use anything other than your finger tips for hypoglycemia or rapidly changing numbers (physiology says that the blood in your forearm lags behind the blood in your fingertips). Despising exceptions (because well, golly gee, IF I knew I was low, then that kind of defeats the point doesn't it) and already knowing how inaccurate meters can be (UGH & RAWR), I've always just stuck to my fingers.

So my question to all of you is where are your favorite spots, why are they your favs, and do you always pick your fingers?

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