Failed at the first BG test try

The BG test kit arrived today, so we made our first attempt. Kitty behaved very well, but I totally failed to gather enough blood to test. Tried two ear sticks and it actually worked the second time but she turned her head and the blood smeared. Sigh. Will try again in the morning but will use a warm washcloth to help with blood flow.

She has a healthy appetite and is clearly consuming less water since I started her on a wet food diet several days ago, so I'm going to remain positive.

 

These things happen. Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it. You can actually get enough blood to test from smears, drops that land on your fingers, etc. I haven't actually tried to draw up some off the floor just yet but don't put it past me. When kitty gets a little too wiggly, you can sometimes scoop enough on a finger nail or tip to test. Just make sure your hands are clean before you attempt to test in case you have to resort to that.

 

Kind of reminds me of those Luvs diapers commercials — about being a perfectionist when you have your first child, and kinda "ehhh we'll make it work" with the second one. Do what you must, @KrisQ! Good luck. I am getting a BG monitor tomorrow and will be doing this thing as well.

 

Speaking of diapers ... Here’s something I wrote over on the forum for ProZinc users. Maybe it will be useful to you:

Using a rice sock to heat the ear makes a massive difference, and I highly highly recommend it.

Here’s what we do: we bought a pair of infant socks and put regular uncooked rice in them so that the sock of rice was maybe a little smaller than a golf ball. We did that with two of them. We put them in the microwave for 30 seconds (20 seconds if just heating one rice sock). When the rice sock is warmed up and she’s in her testing place, we put one of the warm rice socks against her ear on the inside and hold it there, gently rubbing the edge of her ear against the warm sock so that it heats up the ear. Meanwhile, we rub the other warm sock all around her face, jaw line, orbital bones, etc, just as a distraction, and she LOVES that. Who doesn’t want a warm facial massage?

We do that for about 20 seconds. We then do the test, and the blood has beaded right up with one tiny lancet prick every single time. We also use the rice sock during testing itself: we place a flat cotton round between the ear and the rice sock. It really helps to keep the ear steady and firm so that we can get a nice stick without the ear moving away from the lancet just due to the pressure of the lancet.

So I hope something like that will help, and in the meantime, please know that the ear *will* bleed more easily with every stick since the repeated sticks will cause kitty’s ear to form more capillaries.​

 

I watched a great you tube video on sticking the ear teaching me that the outer edge of the ear is where a blood vessel runs along the edge and best place to prick. It made a huge difference. That way I didn't have to hurt her by massaging the ear too forcefully trying to coax the blood droplet out because of fear of the dreaded time out of the strip rendering it useless---a trick no doubt rigged by the meter companies to increase the number of strips purchased!

 

I used a warm washcloth this morning and it worked! BG was 229 this morning, down from 500 last Thursday - so she's dropped by half in less than a week just by changing her food. Feeling much better about things - thanks for all of the kind words!

 

You want to poke between the vein and the edge of the ear, not directly on the vein. Poking the vein is more painful and can result in too much bleeding.


If you stick a strip in the meter, and it times out before you use it, you can pull it out and stick it back in. It should not be useless. If you get something on it, that can render it useless, but just timing out should not.