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Different reading left and right hand?

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Purplebauble

Newbie
Messages
3
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi I'm new here and some advice would be appreciated. I've been type 2 for 5 months and insulin dependent for 3 of them.

I've got a onetouch verioQ monitor and I recently decided to test different fingers/hand to lessen the marks on my fingertips.
I was concerned that my bs has been much much higher and just realised that this is since I switched hands
So I checked my left hand before dinner tonight and got 6.5
Checked my right hand and got 10.7!!!

Have I got a faulty meter or should I only use my left hand? I don't know which to trust, are there any other areas of he body I can use for testing?

Advice would be most appreciated

Thanks
 
Purplebauble said:
Hi I'm new here and some advice would be appreciated. I've been type 2 for 5 months and insulin dependent for 3 of them.

I've got a onetouch verioQ monitor and I recently decided to test different fingers/hand to lessen the marks on my fingertips.
I was concerned that my bs has been much much higher and just realised that this is since I switched hands
So I checked my left hand before dinner tonight and got 6.5
Checked my right hand and got 10.7!!!

Have I got a faulty meter or should I only use my left hand? I don't know which to trust, are there any other areas of he body I can use for testing?

Advice would be most appreciated

Thanks
Click to expand...
Hi Purplebauble.
I think that most of us have done tests like this at some point. Are you absolutely sure that both hands were clean and dry when you did the testing?
Some variation is normal as your blood will be slightly different in one hand than the other. Even different fingers on the same hand can yield different results if testing at the same time.
A difference of 4mmol does seem a bit high to me though. You'll probably get some others dropping in with some advice soon.
 
I admit I don't always wash my hands before testing. I will make a point to start doing so though.
I'll try both hands again at bedtime and see how I get on.
Thanks for replying
 
Clean hands are essential for testing. The results can be influenced by many things, don't use alcohol gels or anything similar, just plain soap and water.
 
i test fairly often. i have tried devices from multiple manufacturers at the same time. also different strips with one device from the same droplet of blood. and two devices from the same manufacturer etc never have i gotten the exact same result.
however, the largest variation i have seen is around 0.5
so yours is quite unusual. hope that helps.
 
If you tested every few minutes on different fingers you would always get different readings Finger prick tests are only a guide not 100% acurate
 
I washed my hands and tested at bedtime with both hands. The difference was 0.2
I wonder if I had something on my hands from cooking that would influence
Thanks for the replies, I'll take more care in future
 
Purplebauble said:
I washed my hands and tested at bedtime with both hands. The difference was 0.2
I wonder if I had something on my hands from cooking that would influence
Thanks for the replies, I'll take more care in future
Click to expand...

Anything can influence the readings, even the soap you use to wash your hands.
I tend to use a lot of swarfega orange, and find if I don't rinse it off thoroughly, I can get a higher reading.
 
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