I don’t often test my blood using my arm and there’s a good reason for it…it leaves track marks…and they’re far worse than the ones on my fingers. The bruise and they take forever to go away. Lastly, like my fingers, it’s hit or miss as to whether they’ll bleed or not…which means there’s unnecessary wounding happening on my arm.
The first time I ever used my arm to test my blood I was in college. My fingers were damaged (nothing’s changed there) and I needed a new place to draw blood. It was about the time that the lancet devices were coming with the tip that allowed us to use our arms. So, I did just that, I used my arm. The marks began as a few but quickly multiplied, because I was anal about the marks on my arm they were in a straight line.
One day as I was taking a test, I had a professor come up to me and say “Ms. Benefiel, I need to see you in my office today during office hours.” I acknowledged the response and showed up for office hours. The professor addressed the marks on my arm: “Track marks aren’t typically something that you want to display to the public.” (As it was spring and I had been wearing short sleeve shirts.) I educated him on how what was on my arms weren’t track marks due to drug use and that they were due to me checking my blood since I had diabetes and my fingers needed a break.
That was also the last time that I used my arm as a lancing pad. That is, until recently. With all the blood checking that I’ve been doing for basal rates and trying to keep from going low while my food consumption is low I needed to move from my fingers (20 pricks a day to the fingers is intense when you only have 6 finger or 12 sides of the fingers to use).
I got adventurous the other night and decided to use my arm. I’ve got spots galore from one night and a morning of testing. Many of them bruised. I have one spot on my right arm where it actually grew a decent sized bump and bruised. I was cool with it because it was giving my fingers relief and it’s winter so they’re covered up, but then I learned something…
The blood in your arm doesn’t match the blood in your fingers blood sugar wise. The arm checks that I was doing were consistently 20pts higher. I only discovered this because my CGM sensor failed calibration from a finger check so I checked my arm, and then several more fingers and then my other arm. When I asked a good friend about this she said “DUH! Your fingers are the most accurate place to check your blood. You can use your arm but not when you’re low.” And I added, and not when I’m high either. I rolled my eyes and went back to pricking my fingers.
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