Blood Glucose Monitoring
Blood glucose monitoring is one of the most crucial components in the management of diabetes mellitus for all parties concerned: physicians and diabetic team need blood glucose level before they can adjust diabetic medication or insulin; whereas the info is valuable for diabetics themselves because they can then watch the food that they eat and the amount of exercise they should undertake. With technological advancements more and more methods of testing blood glucose are becoming available, the most common of which are described below:
Blood Glucose Meter
A lancet is used to prick your finger to obtain some blood on a test strip which is then inserted into a palm-sized electronic device called blood glucose meter which will analyze the result of the reaction between the blood glucose found in your blood and the chemical compound on the test strip to give you a reading of your blood sugar level. You can find more info about this in our Blood Glucose Meter article.
Chemical Test Strips
The bulk of test strips sold on the market are to be used in conjunction with blood glucose meters, but there are some that can be used own its own for very crude monitoring of blood glucose. By dropping a fairly large amount of blood on such blood glucose test strips, the color of the strip will change according to how much glucose is there in the blood. Strictly speaking these are only suitable for diabetic patients who only need to monitor their blood glucose level intermittently.
Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring
A recently approved technology that allows automatic sensing of the glucose level in your bloodstream every few minutes therefore providing more accurate data then the finger prick tests done every few hours. It comprises a subcutaneous glucose sensor which is replaced every few days and linked to a external transmitter which feeds the data to an electronic meter which then virtually continuously shows the blood glucose levels and glycemic trends.
It is most useful for Type 1 diabetics who require stringent control of their blood sugar level; people with diabetes mellitus who live with stress affecting their ability to give full attention to blood sugar monitoring; and people who are prone to hypoglycemia. An alarm can be triggered when the blood glucose exceeds the threshold, therefore allowing the insulin user to initiate remedy.
Non-Invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring
Amazing as it sounds, new technologies are being developed to measure blood sugar levels which do not require blood. Instead, they rely on ultrasound, infrared and impedance spectroscopy to monitor the blood glucose level.