Milking fingers causes low BG readings

The User Manual that came with my Mendor Discreet BG meter says that when testing BGs, milking the finger to get the blood 'may cause low test results'.

I've never heard this before - is this true?

I have heard people on the diabetes support forum say its best to let it come out on its own.......

personally I don't take much notice, it has never seemed to cause me problems.........the meters are hardly that accurate anyway.........

I have to milk my fingers, I don't have enough blood to let it come out on it's own!

Lol....I think there's more than enough blood in there.....

Increase the lancet depth setting....

That's if you actually think that milking it makes a significant difference....

I don't....

Lol....I think there's more than enough blood in there.....

Increase the lancet depth setting....

That's if you actually think that milking it makes a significant difference....

I don't....

I can't see how massaging your finger can decrease the blood-sugar readiing.

Perhaps an HCP could answer that.

I've also heard that it generally skews the BG result.

I've outright ignored this though. Blood is blood as far as I'm concerned.

my understanding and it could be wrong, is that if you squeeze the blood out you could also squeeze out subcutaneous matter that affects the reading. This is why they say don't milk...
That said I too do it, its one of those things that the medical profession think patients don't do, that in reality they do all the time

if you prick your finger and there just isn't enough, a little encouragement it better than another stabbing.........lol

Yes I'm sure that your meter information is correct as anything that takes up volume - as marke suggests - in a small sample is going to 'dilute' that sample and give a lower result.

When you finger ends are tender though and look like pin cushions there is no way that I would deepen the stab.

Yes, I encourage blood out of my fingers always. With this consistant approach I get reproducibility of results.
Recognising that BG meters do not give absolute mmol/L values and that so many factors affect the meter result I am satisfied to have reliable, repeatable numbers.
I use an Abbott Optium Xceed meter, the blood sample is only a tiny one - 0.6 μL and I found results varied even between barely wetting the strip and giving it a large dollop of blood. Small blood samples gave lower results than large blood samples.
Unwashed hands gave remarkably different results from clean, dry hands.
So I just try and reproduce a consistent same size sample all the time from washed and dried hands.
With fingers feeling the way mine do - that’s a small blood sample from a minimum stab depth.
Regards
Garry