Blood glucose monitoring

Blood glucose monitoring is a way of testing how much glucose is in the blood. A drop of blood, usually taken from the fingertip, is placed on the end of a specially coated strip, called a testing strip. The strip has a chemical on it that makes it change color according to how much glucose is in the blood. One can tell if the level of glucose is low, high, or normal in one of two ways. The first is by comparing the color on the end of the strip to a color chart that is printed on the side of the test strip container. The second is by inserting the strip into a small machine, called a blood glucose meter, which "reads" the strip and shows the level of blood glucose in a digital window display. Patients can adjust doses of hypoglycemic treatment by guidance of blood glucose monitoring and achieve better glycemic control.

See also : Diabetes mellitus.