Gestational Diabetes: Do the Fingersticks Have to Hurt?

My health care has been really great with my pregnancy...the exception being when I got gestational diabetes about a month ago, I wasn't taught how to do the blood glucose testing. (Well, I was, but by someone who'd never done it before, let alone taught someone how to do it, which honestly I'm seeing now was way worse than not being shown at all.)

I use this little device called the OneTouch Delica to prick my finger...and figuring it out on my own, I had to turn the dial to the highest setting (the higher the setting, the deeper the needle stick) to make it work and still I was having to poke myself multiple times for each reading and every time it HURT.

My mom had found an article for me when this whole diabetes thing first started that said testing was virtually pain free these days, and so I was left wondering, why did it hurt me so much? Was I that much of a wimp?

Well, kind of by accident, I've figured out over the past couple days that if I place the top on the device a certain way and put the device hard against my fingertip I can 1) not only get blood every time, but 2) I have also been able to dial back the needle depth from 7 (highest setting) to 1 (lowest). AND it doesn't hurt really AT ALL anymore. I am soooooo happy about this. Just wish it hadn't taken me a month of pain 4 times a day to figure this out.

So my advice to anyone who wants/needs it: Get trained. And if it hurts to do your blood sugars, you're doing something wrong. I felt like I just had to grin and bear it, but I'm seeing now that if it's done right it really doesn't have to hurt.

XOXO