I just heard from someone that "most" T1D people suffer from loss of finger sensitivity over time. She said that Joslin is very concerned about this issue at the moment, but she couldn't direct me to any research. I've asked my doctor about this, and she was not concerned. I have tried to find information about this on the web and have not been successful. Does anyone know anything about this issue of loss of fintertip sensitivity due to blood sugar testing? Any websites with research about this? Should we be pushing alternate site testing, or am I making unnecessary trouble? This is a huge issue for us since my dd wants to go into music professionally. Her fingertips are rather important to her!
DD's best friend has been D since she was 4 (11 years now) and she once mentioned that she was having issues with her fingers and she now tests her toes. I've tested DS's toes a few times too.
Make sure that she is testing not on the tip but the side of the tip of the finger, first of all. You just have to test out alternate sites, and compare to finger testing results. There may be a significant lag time. That said There is more than a few here that test the forearm and base of the thumb soley without issue.
I have also heard to test on sides of finger to reduce possiblity of loss of sensation vs. center of tip. Lisa
My meter came with instructions for alternate site testing and you can even order an attachment for it for this purpose. It looks like a hollow tip, although I don' really understand why you would need a different attachment.
Seth tests his arm too, probably MORE often than his fingers. If it has been at least 3 hours since his last fastacting then it works for us. If has not been 3 hours, we test his finger. Also, we test arms when we retest lows. If he is good on his arm, then he's fine as the fingers are about 10 minutes faster. However, ifr he's still low on his arm, we will test his finger too before giving more carbs in case he did come up.
Maddie uses her arms all the time. CDE has no problem with that and we see little to no difference in the finger sticks and the arm.
