Even when you are eating healthfully and doing all the right things, problems with high or low blood sugar can occur. Most people who have been living with diabetes for a while are on top of these fluctuations and know what to look for or what to do if this happens.

How have you dealt with blood sugar fluctuations?

Do you have advice to give to someone who's been newly diagnosed about what signs to look for to tell if their blood sugar levels get too high or too low?

I think it's important to not only pay attention to any symptoms of low or high blood sugar, but to also take a couple of minutes and actually test my blood sugar to find out where I'm at. Many people feel shaky when their blood sugar is low, but just "feeling" blood sugar levels really doesn't give us enough information. As one diabetes nurse educator taught me, you always have to test to know for sure what's happening.

I find that anytime I feel "off" or "different" I check my blood sugar first. If it is fine, then I can immediately rule that out as the cause. However, I find that more often than not, it is the problem. Knowing that, I can address it quickly.

Do you all do finger sticks? I'm such a sissy... I test on my arm to avoid the pain of finger sticks. The manufacturers say you can do that. But I've only recently learned that results from the arm stick don't show changes in blood sugar levels nearly as quickly as a finger stick does. In other words, eat a candy bar (no... I'm not telling you to eat a candy bar!!! hehehe) and you will see the rise in your blood sugar sooner if you do a finger stick than if you do an arm stick (or other peripheral area). They say the lag period for it to show up in an arm stick is about 15 minutes or so. Same with effects of exercise on blood sugar or anything else that affects blood sugar levels. Will take you longer to see the effect if you are doing alternate site testing. Something to do with the little capillaries being closer to the surface of the skin in the finger than they are in the arm or leg ... or maybe it was the number of capillaries... something. It made sense when I read it. LOL. Anyway... I guess unless you are measuring a fasting level or a level that ought to be fairly stable... I guess one really ought to do that finger stick if you need an accurate reading right now and you have reason to think that it might be a rapidly dropping or rising level. Sigh. I guess you all already know that. Thought it was worth mentioning though... for all the other sissies out there. :-)

I was a total chicken at first with the finger sticks too. But, I found that the lancet devices are pretty painless. Now my husband, he just takes a lancet and jabs it in by hand. I couldn't do that if my life depended on it! <lol> But, like every other method, make sure you use a new lancet every time. Much more sanitary and also less pain. Use a different finger each time too, so that you're not always sticking the same one and making it sore.

I've gotten pretty used to it now and it doesn't bother me anymore. But, that first time, it took me about 2 hours of staring down the lancet device before I actually hit the button!

LOL. Two hours, eh. That's pretty funny. It's not that I can't do it, it's that it hurts! lol. It hurts not only when I do it, but it throbs for an hour afterward. Me big sissy. LOL.

When I was very young, I had problems with tonsilitis... for several years... before they finally took the things out. But it got to where the doctor was doing finger sticks on me for some reason or other... I don't remember the reason... just the finger sticks. I would sit on my hands and it would take everyone in the office to wrestle me down. LOL. Maybe that's why I don't like finger sticks now. LOL.

Actually, reading about your younger days with the finger sticks reminded me of one. I've always had lousy veins, so having an actual blood test is difficult. Well, when I was about 13 or 14, the doctor decided to just do a finger stick on me, rather than a whole blood test. I remember he jabbed that needle in my finger and it felt like my whole hand was on fire. As luck would have it, he hit the nerve in it. That's why it hurt so much. But, that wasn't the worst of it - for months afterwards, if I touched that spot on my finger, I felt horrible pain. It finally subsided, but it took a long time. That's probably why I was so afraid initially, although it was probably subconscious as I haven't thought of that incident in a very long time. Amazing what follows us through life, huh? Sure glad I was able to get over it!