If you ever had a glucose that was severely low without reason, and the retest was drastically different, or if you got the error message: " Not enough sample" on your glucose meter, here are some reasons why that may happen, and how to fix them.
1- You have thicker skin, or placed the device opening at an angle on the skin.
The Solution: Adjust your lancing device to draw more blood, and place it flat on your skin, not at an angle. Here's how:
- Insert the lancet, and twist off the protective cap.
- Replace the top to the lancing device.
- Hold the lancing device so you can see the number indicating device strength.
- Twist the device to adjust the number. #1 is weakest, #5 is strongest.
- Place the lancing device opening directly flush with the skin, not at an angle.
2- Your hands are very cold or have poor circulation
The Solution: Warm up your hands before each measurement, especially on cold days, or in the mornings.
- Move your fingers and hands around to warm up the muscles and boost circulation
- Use hand warmers to warm up the hand, if necessary.
3- Your blood droplet was smeared
The Solution: Ensure that the blood droplet is a nice round drop, and is not dribbling or smearing. This ensures that the strip can collect enough blood from the sample.
- Ensure that your hands are dry- not sweaty, or moist from washing.
- Try not to shake or tip the hand too much after the fingerprick. Instead, get your meter and lancet ready ahead of time
- Don't put the lancet ON TOP of the blood droplet, but instead, place it next to the edge blood droplet. The capillary action in the strip will pull in the blood automatically.
