Blood Glucose Meter
By: Agatha CarlssonTotal Views: 142, Word Count: 560,
Blood glucose meter is medically known as glucose meter which is a device used for knowing the amount of glucose in the blood. It is a very popular device used at home, so as to monitor the glucose.
Use of Blood Glucose Meter
· Take a small drop of blood by pricking the skin and place it on a disposable test strip of glucose meter.
· The machine will give the reading of glucose level in mg/dl or mmol/l
· It is very regularly used by people with type 2 diabetes for maintaining proper level of blood glucose level in the body.
Important Aspects of Blood Glucose Meter
Here are some important points regarding the machine and its parts. It is summarized in the following manner:
· Size of Glucose Meter: It is very small in size i.e. it is nearly equal to the palm of the hand. Nowadays, there are different kinds of machines which are smaller than the palm.
· Test Strips: Test trips of the meter contain the chemicals that react with glucose present in the blood. In some models, plastic test strip are used in which a small spot impregnated with glucose oxidize with other related components. Each of these strips is used for only one time.
· Coding: The test strips vary from model to model. So they are required to be calibrated by manually entering the code which is presented on the vial of test strips. By entering the coding into the glucose meter, it gets calibrated to that specific batch of test strips. Some test strips contain the coding information in the strip or microchip in the vial that can be used, so as to reduce possibility of the error.
· Volume of Blood Sample: The volume of the blood needed by different meters varies from 0.3 to 1 μl. Smaller volume reduces the frequency of idle pricks.
· Testing Times: The times required to test glucose level using this meter is nearly 3 to 60 seconds depending on the model.
· Display: The glucose level is displayed as mg/dl or mmol/l in a small window of the meter.
Recent Advances in Blood Glucose Meter
· Alternate site testing is nowadays used to take blood drops from other site than the finger. It can be the palm or forearm. While using alternate site for pricking, the same test strips and meter are used. It is known to be pain free. The only disadvantage of this is less blood flow to these alternate sites, which result in accuracy of the sugar level.
· Some of the advance meters contain no coding systems. It prevents risk of miscoding and inaccuracy related to this. Along with this, some systems are known to be auto coded.
· Some systems of the meter use a cartridge or a disc containing multiple test strips. In this system, the user does not need loading single strip each time. It is very convenient and quicker as compared to other systems.
· Some blood glucose meters are downloadable. It has the software which can get connected to the computer system. These meters also have a connection cable, or they are designed to be plugged directly.
In this way, we can say that blood glucose meter is very important instrument to maintain blood glucose level of diabetic patients.
About the Author
Agatha Carlsson is a medical practitioner based in Sweden. Apart from being a physician, Agatha is also a Diabetes Educator who does lifestyle and food counseling for diabetic patients.
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