Tomorrow I have the great opportunity to teach a patient how to use a brand new blood glucose meter. The new meter is the Accu-Check Avia Plus. The first topic I looked into was blood sugar testing and when testing should be done with oral anti-glycemic medications. If the patient is within their A1C goal they only need to test once a day. If they are above goal, they need to test 2 to 3 times daily. Of course they should be testing if they start to experience any low blood sugars.
My next thing I researched was the use of control solution. This solution is meter specific and needs to be used a few different situations. When using the control solution it is done just like testing blood, but a drop of liquid from the bottle is placed on the strip. A control test should be done in the following situations:
- Before using the meter for the first time
- When a new vial of test strips are opened
- If the vial of test strips are left open (allows to check for accuracy)
- If the meter is dropped (to check for accuracy)
- If your meter reading doesn't seem to be quite right (ex: you are feeling low, but it is reading high or you feel ok and it is reading very low)
- If you want to verify your technique in checking blood sugars
- If you repeated the test that didn't seem right and it is still out the range you were expecting
- If you just want to know how your meter or strips are currently performing
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