What is a Glucometer? How does it work?

A Glucometer can help you manage your diabetes with comfort and ease.

Diabetes is a significant cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke, and lower limb amputation.

Don’t be scared; with proper care, regular screening, and the right medication, it can be treated.

Nowadays, people are always in a hurry, busy with work that they can not go to labs to test blood glucose daily.

Regular lab tests can be very time conceiving and costly. Checking your blood glucose levels regularly with Glucometers can save you a lot of your money and visits to the hospital.

What is a Glucometer?

what is a glucometer

For a long time, patients of diabetes have been using Glucometer for home blood glucose monitoring.

A Glucometer is a device to monitor your blood glucose levels.

It’s an easy and efficient way to keep track of your blood glucose levels. It is pocket-friendly and doesn’t take too much of your time.

For people with a sugar-related disease who needs to test their glucose levels 3-4 times a day, this device is a must-have.

Features of Glucometer

  1. Easy To Use- in some of the previous models, you’d have to put codes before you test your blood. But now there are automatic glucometers that you can use very quickly. You can set the strip and use it straight away. The size is small so that you can carry it with you anywhere.
  2. Cost-Effectiveness- Blood Glucose tests in Hospitals and clinical labs are not pocket-friendly, especially if you need to check your blood glucose levels several times a day and don’t want to spend money your time on it than this is the solution for you. Its strips cost less than your regular hospital visit, and if you take good care of devices like cleaning its lenses and use new strips, it will be with you for a long time.
  3. Time-Saving – Your time is very precious, and I know you don’t want to spend it visiting hospitals and taking blood tests, taking the test and wait for the result is time-consuming; its no good for business. With glucometer, you can take the test anywhere, and it gives you result in about 3-60 seconds. It can save you a lot of your time which you can spend where ever you want to.
  4. Self Monitoring– for diabetes and other blood-related diseases, you have to know about your blood glucose levels all the time. In some cases, knowing if your glucose levels are high or low can save your life. Self-monitoring can improve your daily routine for the betterment of you and your health. Even though you have to discuss the results with your physicist to make any changes in your routine, it can certainly help you in managing your habits.
  5. Reliable– It is a trustworthy product. There can be only a 10-20% difference between lab results and glucometer’s result. You can go online and read real user experiences, that will tell you how this device saves a lot of people’s a lot of money, time and life.
  6. Keeping Records– You want to keep track of all the results you get? No worries cause there are several brands of glucometers that have an app or other systems to keep a record of all your results. In case you ever need them or if you want to show it to your physicist. It can be handy for long term ill patients who have to keep a record for their treatments.

Also, See: Is it worth to buy a Glucometer? 5 Reasons to buy a Glucometer

Types of Glucometer and Working Principles

Self Monitoring Blood Glucometer

A wide range of people uses this type of glucometers for checking their daily glucose levels.

This Glucometer uses a lancet to take a drop of blood from your affluent blood areas, mostly fingertips.

Put The droplet of blood on a strip that contains an enzyme called glucose oxidase.

It reacts to the glucose in the blood.

The reaction of glucose and enzyme creates an electrical current. There is an electrode inside the meter that measures the amount of electrical current and shows you the result.

The higher the glucose levels in the blood, the higher the electrical current will be.

Features

  • Pocket-friendly
  • Reliable results

It’s easy to use but I will recommend you learn how to use Self Monitoring Blood Glucometer.

Continuous Glucometer

For the people who have type 1 diabetes and who need to check their blood glucose levels several times a day.

This Glucometer can be beneficial. It gives you real-time readings.

In this meter, an electrode is placed under your skin that takes your glucose readings continuously.

Then, a transmitter sends the data to a receiver.

It is also useful to the people who don’t want to prick their fingertips every time they want to check their glucose levels.

It gives you live updates in real-time.

Still, there can be a lag of time because it takes glucose readings from interstitial fluids, and it takes time for glucose to travel through the blood to interstitial fluids.

Features

  • Real-time monitoring
  • No skin pricking every time

This Glucometer is Advance, therefore, I would suggest you learn to use a Continuous Glucometer.

Noninvasive Glucometer

In this type of meter, you don’t have to prick your skin to get blood.

It doesn’t need direct contact with your blood to gather information about your glucose levels in the blood.

How much of a relief that would be no pain every time you want to check your glucose.

As of 1999, there was only one product that was approved by the FDA and was sold in the market.

But it was withdrawn due to awful performance, and it was causing some skin damages. Don’t lose hope because scientists are still working on it every day.

Decided to get a Glucometer for Yourself or Family?

Now you already know how crucial a Glucometer is for people with Diabetes. Your and your loved ones’ health is the most important reason you need to get a glucometer.

It’s hard to find a good Glucometer because the market full of them which leads to Confusion. Therefore I have selected the Best Glucometer Available in India to help you out.

Wrapping up

So if you have any sugar-related problem or someone you love has, a glucometer is a must-have for you.

At the end of the day, It will keep track of your blood glucose and save you money.

It’s going to save you a lot of time as well and give you the satisfaction of knowing that your blood glucose levels are right. Also, you can check anytime, anywhere, without seeing a doctor.

References

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose_meter
  2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2769957/
  3. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/193229680900300446
  4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4046592/

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