What is Glucose Meter?
What is glucose meter? Let us find it out. When a person is suspected as a diabetic, doctors tell him/her to check the blood sugar in the laboratory. Once it is confirmed that he/she is a diabetes person, it is very necessary to check the blood sugar level regularly. Here comes the role of glucose meter.
What is Glucose Meter?
Glucose meter is a way of monitoring blood glucose concentration in the blood which is crucial for the patients of diabetes mellitus.
How to Use Glucose Meter?
- A blood glucose test is performed with the help of a glucose meter. In this method, blood is drawn by piercing the skin on the finger and then applying it on chemically active 'test-strip' which is disposable.
- Keep in mind that different manufacturers use different type of technologies, but most of the manufacturers use electrical characteristics, and use this to calculate the glucose level.
- All are home-use test kits to measure blood sugar in blood. This is totally a quantitative analysis.
The result from the glucose meter can help you in the following ways:
- Determine daily adjustments in treatment
- Know if the level is dangerously high or low
- Understand how your diet and medication takes part in changing your glucose levels.
When you are using the glucose meter, consult your doctor's recommendations about how often you should test your sugar level.
Your fasting blood glucose level should be less than 126 mg/dL and after eating should be lower than 200 mg/dL.
Accuracy of the Glucose Meter
Accuracy of glucose meter test depends on the following factors:
- Quality of your meter
- Quality of your test strips
- How well you carry out the test
- Your Hematocrit: If one has a high hematocrit, he/she may test low for blood sugar and the person with low hematocrit, may test high glucose level.
- Interfering Substances: There are some interfering substances like Vitamin C and uric acid present in the blood that may interfere with glucose.
- Altitude, temperature, and humidity
Before self-monitoring your blood glucose meter, it is very important to understand the instructions for using the meter.
You can get knowledge about the meter and test strips from different sources which include toll free number available in user manual as well as the manufacturer's web site.
If one has a very urgent problem and need to test the glucose level, always contact the healthcare provider or sometimes, the local emergency room for advice which can also give you the information regarding your problem of glucose meter.
How to Choose Glucose Meter?
There are nearly 25 -30 types of glucose meters available in the market. You can select your glucose meter using the following criteria:
- Amount of blood needed for the test
- Actual way of its use
- Pain related with use of the product
- Accuracy
- Testing speed
- Overall size
- Ability to store results of tests in memory
- Doctor's suggestion
- Technical support provided by the company
- Special features, for e.g. large display screen, automatic timing, error codes, spoken instructions or results.
- Cost of the meter
- Cost of the test strips
Keep in mind that all the types of glucose meters are having different advantages and disadvantages. So if we know the answer of what is glucose meter, then it is very easy to make proper decision regarding which glucose meter you should buy.