Strip Safely (and carry a BIG stick)

In the beginning of my diabetes journey, a blood glucose reading was a thing written in stone, the Gospel truth."What's your number?" "What's your number?"I had no reason to doubt the number, to doubt the archaic brick of mid-90's technology that took a whopping 45 seconds to spit out that number. I was good, I was bad,that number ruled my life.(as well as my parents)And then came the day when my blood glucose dropped from 77 to 33 in the space of about 10 minutes. As a good little PWD who actually was listening when the CDE taught Hypo 101, I drank juice & eagerly awaited the sensations of this, my first low blood sugar. (this was about a month post dx) Those sensations were not long in coming. Shakes, blurry vision,heart racing, numb face & tongue...I was convinced that I was dying. As my blood sugar continued to drop, my brother gave glucagon & sure enough, I was in the land of the 400's in double quick order.(thankfully.Woohoo for freaked out family members.)I think that was the day that the seeds of doubt as to the accuracy of said meter(and strips in general) were first planted in my mind. The years (and circumstances) have set the mind set of double checking every extreme high, & taking the other numbers in the context of "this is X. It could be right but it's likely 20% off in either direction & I'm going to take that into account if I correct it." It ain't the lab draw,people.But it shouldn't be that way, not for me or for anyone else. Lots of people base major insul...
Source: The D-Log Cabin - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs