How to monitor diabetes at home with a glucometer?

Diabetes has become a common phenomenon across Indian households due to the choices of lifestyle and food habits. Diabetes can cause serious health complications, such as kidney failure or cardiovascular disease. Thus, regular monitoring of diabetes has become a necessity to manage and minimise the impact of the disease.

You can visit a diabetes clinic in Siliguri or a trusted hospital near your location to check your blood sugar levels and gain knowledge about diabetes management. On the other hand, the invention of the glucometer has been a major revolution that has made diabetes monitoring and management at home possible to a large extent. However, the key for you is to learn the proper process of using a glucometer at home. 

Before learning about the process of monitoring diabetes at home with a glucometer, let us analyse the importance of self-monitoring at home for diabetic individuals.

Why is self-monitoring important in diabetes?

Self-awareness plays a vital role in terms of equipping diabetic individuals with relevant knowledge about normal blood sugar levels and dangerous blood sugar levels. This knowledge creates a motivation among diabetic individuals to monitor and control diabetes, which in turn leads to improved health outcomes.

Better analysis of the current treatment’s effectiveness: Every diabetic individual undergoes a specific treatment and management plan based on dietary changes and medications. The key in this regard is to analyse the results or effectiveness of the treatment and management plan within a specific time period, so that changes can be made where it is necessary. Thus, self-monitoring is one of the most convenient options to analyse the effectiveness of the ongoing treatment and management plan. 

Identification of triggering factors: For every person suffering from diabetes, certain foods or activities lead to either increased or decreased blood sugar levels. Thus, self-monitoring plays a vital role in this regard because you can monitor your blood sugar levels regularly and determine the trigger factors, such as specific food being consumed on that day or activities being performed. 

Helps in avoiding further deterioration: In the context of diabetes, ignorance in monitoring and management can lead to health issues such as blindness, kidney failure, or cardiovascular diseases. Thus, the role of self-monitoring holds tremendous significance because it makes an individual alert about reaching dangerous blood sugar levels, which makes room for immediate treatment and management.

Better knowledge about food and lifestyle that supports diabetes management: Once you start to self-monitor diabetes regularly, you can gain significant knowledge about foods that contribute to controlling blood sugar levels, as well as lifestyle changes that help the cause of diabetes management. This proves to be a major game-changer in terms of improved self-management in diabetes.

How to Monitor Diabetes at Home with a Glucometer?

• Wash and maintain proper hygiene: This is the first step of using a glucometer at home because taking out a blood sample requires hygiene and safety to avoid infection. In addition, the presence of food particles on your finger tip might also give incorrect results. Thus, before using a glucometer at home, it is important to wash your hands properly and wait for them to become completely dry. 
• Turning on the glucometer: A glucometer turns on automatically once you insert a test strip. The key in this step is to identify the signal, which indicates that the inserted strip is ready to take the blood sample to be provided for the test. Thus, you need to ensure that the glucometer is showing a ready signal before proceeding to the next step.
• Use the lancet for obtaining a blood sample: This step needs to be done carefully because it involves the process of taking blood from the finger tip. Thus, you need to adjust the lancet carefully on your fingertip and take out a drop of blood by pressing, which is enough for the strip. Please do not overuse the lancet because repeated use of the same lancet can cause infections.
• Wait for the result to appear: Once the blood sample falls on the test strip, the glucometer will begin analysis of blood sugar levels. You need to wait for the blood sugar readings to appear.
• Analyse the results: This is the last step, where you will compare the results to the normal blood sugar level range. A healthy blood sugar level before a meal is between 70 mg/dl and 100 mg/dl. Two hours after a meal, a normal blood sugar level is between 100 mg/dl and 140 mg/dl. Thus, you can compare your results with the standard ranges.

What additional steps can you take at home to manage diabetes better?

1. Limit intake of carbohydrates and sugar: Carbohydrates and sugar are two of the most common elements triggering diabetes. Thus, it is important to cut down the quantity or avoid carbohydrates and sugar as much as possible because food containing carbohydrates and sugar leads to the production of excessive glucose.
2. Follow a fixed and consistent eating schedule: This should be an integral part of daily life for people suffering from diabetes. According to clinical studies and research, having an inconsistent eating schedule can lead to insulin resistance and disruption in cardiac functioning, which are directly related to type 2 diabetes.
3. Include physical activity: For effective diabetes management, physical activity helps in maintaining a healthy body mass index (BMI). According to clinical studies, a healthy BMI helps in improving insulin sensitivity, which is directly related to a reduction in blood sugar levels from high to normal range.

Conclusion

Self-monitoring your diabetes at home with a glucometer can help you manage it effectively. However, you also need to ensure that the results of the glucometer are accurate, which can be done by getting a blood test done every month at a reputed diabetes clinic in Siliguri, such as Kins Diabetes or a reputed clinic at your location.

Overall, the key to diabetes management is efficient and regular monitoring, along with switching to a healthy lifestyle.

Don’t let diabetes hamper the quality of your life. Get in touch with the best diabetes clinics and learn the process of self-monitoring with the use of a glucometer.