I think having a great primary care physician–not just a doctor who is smart, because there are tons of those, but someone you can trust and talk to–is really important. I was blessed with a couple of great ones.

Some of the things that are pretty likely if you have diabetes is that the physician is going to prescribe for you a glucometer–a device you use to test your blood sugar–as well as some medication.

Glucometers are not fun. To use the glucometer, a test strip needs to be placed in the gulcuometer, a finger prick needs to happen–which of course can be painful and a little messy–and the blood from the finger prick needs to be placed onto the strip. The meter will tell you in a few seconds what its reading is. 100 is considered the high level of normal; I am personally about never under 100–and if I am, I feel a bit light headed.

Interestingly, you will find that your local pharmacy will almost give you the glucometer. I think mine cost all of $4; some people get them free, even without insurance. Why are they so cheap? Because the strips are expensive. The test strips I use retail at 70 cents apiece, and my physician wants me to test as many as four times a day when I’m well, and I test more when I’m sick. Take four strips at 70 cents ($2.80) and multiply that by 30 days–you get $84 a month. And that’s likely to be income the test strip manufacturer gets forever (fortunately I have very decent medical coverage and pay about $20 for three months worth of strips). If you ever search for strips on eBay, you will see there is a pretty large cottage industry that sells test strips. Think inkjet printers and ink, or razors and blades.

One of the nice features of some (but not all) meters is you can hook them up to a computer and use special software to download your test results as well as look at the data graphically. This can tell you if you’re high at certain times of day or low at others; if you keep a food diary and/or an exercise diary, you can correlate those results with your activity or diet to tell you a bit more about how certain foods or activities affect your blood sugar. For instance, I’ve found that running or jumping rope makes a tremendous impact at keeping my sugars down; weight lifting or walking does virtually nothing for me.

Do I carry the glucometer with me all the time? No, I don’t. I also tend to test only once or twice a day unless I’m sick. However, when I’m having difficulty or not feeling well, I test a lot. When I was new at this, I tested an awful lot, and I got to learn a bit about my body. Now I’ll go a day without testing unless I feel a bit unusual.

No, testing’s not fun. It can hurt. But it’s an important part of learning about your body and getting your diabetes under control; that alone is reason to make sure you do it. The pain will eventually become less of an issue and you’ll learn how your body responds to food and exercise–which is critical to keeping your sugars manageable.