I'm not drawing enough blood from my fingers for my testing strip. Any advice regarding this?

Some times new users tend to pull fingers away from the lancette.

Push a little harder and only use the sides of your fingers.

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Wash hands in very warm water and dry rubbing briskly. It helps me to get enough of a drop for the meters that take more than a mere dot.

I hope this is the meter your insurance company supports. It can be very expensive to pay more than you must for strips!! they cost around a dollar a strip for some of them. but you might not have the lancet holder set so it is deep enough???

I like the 31 g lancets and syringes.

I have also found taking baby aspirin makes me bleed more freely!! That might help you too. And if you are indeed diabetic remember the doctors treat your blood pressure and heart as if you have already had a major heart event, so they do want you taking the baby aspirin regularly with blood pressure meds.

You can contact me by email and we will visit more about this.

Another good site for info for diabetes treatment is http://www.diabetes.about.com/ The forum there is full of really helpful people who have good control and are super friendly.

Sometimes I have to run my hands in warm water for a few minutes in the morning to get enough blood. You gotta apply pressure in an upward movement on your finger after you stick it.Rub the finger in an upward direction. You aren't supposed to squeeze it. Your lancet may need to be adjusted to make a little deeper prick. Turn the dial on your lancet.

My lancet device has a depth adjustment from 1 - 5. I'm not sure if yours does or not, but if it does turn to higher setting. If you do not have a depth adjustment,then open you device and adjust your needle a little higher till you get the right results.

I wish you the best with your diabetes.

On your lancet device, there should be some kind of dial on it, maybe at the tip, that allows you to adjust how deep the lancet goes. Crank that up a little and try it, crank up all the way to the top if you have to.

As some people already answered, run your fingers under warm water and/or massage them right before pricking them. Also, don't clean them with alcohol or Purel - this dries them up and causes less blood to come out.

Try testing on the top of your forearm towards the pinky finger side, from about midway up to the elbow. It doesn't hurt as much either.

Massage your hands from the palm down to the fingertip you plan on pricking.

Also make sure the setting on your plunger is high enough to penetrate the skin...i usually keep mine on 4.

Doc's told me to massage the blood to the tips of my fingers.