Your doctor may want you to start checking your blood glucose at home. If this is the case, you will need to get a small machine called a blood glucose meter.

Ask your doctor or diabetes educator to help you select a meter that works best for you and is covered by your insurance.

How Does a Meter Work?

Meters work by testing a small drop of your blood for glucose.

Most people prick their fingertip to get the blood drop, but you can ask your diabetes educator or doctor about other methods.

Why is it Important?

Before you had diabetes, no matter what you ate or how active you were, your blood glucose automatically stayed within a normal range.

With diabetes, this is no longer true.

Checking your blood glucose is one way you can know how food, activity and medicine affect your blood glucose.

It can help you make sure your blood glucose isn’t going too high or too low.

Write the date, time and blood glucose number in a logbook so you can share it with your diabetes care team. You can also use our free online tool, Diabetes 24/7 to track and analyze your blood glucose numbers.

Together with the team, you can use your logbook to make decisions about food, physical activity and medicine.

How Often to Check

Talk with your doctor or your diabetes care team about how often and when you should check your blood glucose.

Before a meal or two hours after a meal are common times to check blood glucose.

Also talk with your doctor about what your target numbers should be.