By: Chelsea

Today I had the pleasure of meeting a very upbeat woman named Janet who taught myself and a few other student interns everything there is to know about the Accu-Chek Diabetes Monitoring Kit. As the name hints,  Accu-Chek’s main goal is accuracy, an extremely important concept when it comes to managing one’s diabetes. The kit comes stocked with a meter, a lancing device, test strips, and an easy -to-follow guide that reminds users the importance of testing blood sugars as well as how to test. The best part is that Accu-Check is covered by 98% of insurances, and we have plenty of samples in our office!

The meter is small and lightweight and very user friendly. First you insert the strip, which turns on the meter, then check the code to make sure it matches the code on the test strip container (again, accuracy is Accu-Chek’s goal!). Next you obtain a blood sample using the lancing device, which we are told is much less painful and much harder to accidently prick yourself than other brands. It also has five depth settings so that someone with thick skin can get a good sample or someone with thin skin won’t prick themselves to hard. Finally you apply the blood sample to the testing strip and after five seconds your blood sugar levels will appear on the meter’s screen. The meter stores up to 500 tests and shows exactly what time and day the test was done (accuracy!).  Normal blood sugar levels should be between 70 and 140, and fasting levels should be below 100. My favorite part about the Accu-Chek meter is that you can wirelessly download your results to your computer making it easier than ever to track blood glucose levels and manage diabetes.

As a dietetic student, it was really great to learn all about the Accu-Chek kit. At this point in my college career I am quite interested in diabetes management and hope to become a Certified Diabetes Educator in the somewhat near future. It is exciting to think that maybe one day I will be the one teaching patients all about the Accu-Chek meter and how to manage their diabetes!