Nurses Helping Nurses
allnurses Network: Central | Jobs | Books | Newsletter
allnurses: A Nursing Community for Nurses
Home General News Blogs Articles Students Region Specialty Degrees F.A.Q.
Patient Education /

Fasting Blood Sugar Testing question



Did You Know?
allnurses is the largest community for nurses on the web. We now have over 388,796 members! Join today to network with other nurses, laugh, share, and much more.

Mar 17, 2005 06:14 PM

Fasting Blood Sugar Testing question

by Mazzi

It has been seven years since I last had to teach someone how to do self FBS test on a home monitor. While giving the instructions a family member stated that they no longer recommend cleansing the finger with alcohol. Is this true? I work float pool in Newborn Nursery and we still do alcohol swabs before the heel stick. What do most Diabetic Accu Check monitors recommend?Thanks


Share

Search Tags
None
Top

 
Advertisement
Sponsored Links
 
Reply
2 Comments
No. 1
Old Mar 17, 2005, 08:32 PM

Funny you should mention this, as I have heard the same thing, recently. I think it is because *IF* you do use alcohol swabs you are supposed to let it completely dry before you use the lancet because in theory, it could interfere with the reading. Most nurses I know still use alcohol swabs prior to doing the sticking. I'd be curious to hear what others have to say.
Top
 
No. 2
from Tizwit
Old Mar 27, 2005, 04:52 PM
Updated Mar 27, 2005 at 05:17 PM by NRSKarenRN

Smile To wipe or Not to wipe???
Originally Posted by Mazzi
It has been seven years since I last had to teach someone how to do self FBS test on a home monitor. While giving the instructions a family member stated that they no longer recommend cleansing the finger with alcohol. Is this true? I work float pool in Newborn Nursery and we still do alcohol swabs before the heel stick. What do most Diabetic Accu Check monitors recommend?Thanks

The main reason for not using Alcohol is that it tends to dry out the skin faster as well as not being that great of a cleanser. These days we encourage people to wash their hand with soap and water if possible. The main reason is not to clean but to remove any possible contaminate from the finger that may give a false "High" reading and inturn altering the amount of insulin (or other medication) given.

Hope this helps

Brian
Top
 
Reply




Thread Tools


Who's Online
244 members
2,160 guests
2,404

0

James Woods, Actor Sues Hospital, Warwick, RI

0

16 fired for HIPAA Violations

6

Four Lehigh Valley Health Network nurses accused of...

48

lawsuit - But don't most RN's work through breaks/lunch...

0

Patient Evaluation of Retail Clinic Care

7

The hard to reach on-call doctor, and its effects on...

12

Woman charged with passing off prescription drug as...

27

Man in "Vegetative State" was conscious for 23...

2

Interesting article on ThedaCare's Collaborative Care Model

14

Possible breakthrough regarding MS






Currently Reading This Page: 1 (0 members & 1 guests)

Interested in the hottest topics of the week? Subscribe to the Nurse-zine Newsletter.
Enter email address: