Can certain medications or health conditions affect results from the forearm which are not noticeable when doing fingerstick testing?
Apart from physiological differences in the way different areas of the body respond to meals, insulin or physical activity, we are not aware of any health conditions or medications that would affect forearm results differently than finger results. Certain conditions such as abnormal hematocrit levels or circulation problems can affect blood glucose results, regardless of the testing site location. Instruct your patients to obtain finger results in conjunction with forearm results to help assess whether the site to site difference is significant for that individual. Under certain conditions, blood glucose testresults obtained using samples from the forearm may differ significantly from fingertip samples. The conditions in which these differences are most likely to occur are when blood glucose is changing rapidly, such as during the 2 hour period following a meal, insulin dose or physical exercise. When blood glucose is falling, testing with a fingertip sample may identify a hypoglycemic
