Hey! It's not the LIP I'm pricking!

I put Lipstick on Kumbi in this picture. Only on the picture. Not on him, really!

I wanted to show that it is absolutely not the lip itself I am pricking!

It's the lining of the mouth, between the lip and the gums. About halfway between works well, and the prick needs to be toward the back corner of the mourh, rather than farther forward, to stay away from areas more profusely endowed with nerve endings.

If the mouth is cold, I might massage

This picture shows a little darker area, which I've made artificially darker in the picture. That merely represents the approximate area that seems to work best for pricking, and suggests that I've brought a bit of blood there by massaging with my free thumb. In fact, the area won't have such a hard-edged look to it.

In the picture, I am placing the needle of the lancet. Once it's placed, I push, rather swiftly, but gently, to the full depth of the lancet needle. Then I withdraw the lancet and lay it down. Still holding the lip against the upper jaw, I wait and watch.

How to waste a whole lot of test strips!

I wasted 75 test strips on pricks that didn't deliver enough blood for a good reading. That's about seventy-five dollars I could not afford. Finally I realized that the lancets I was using, which had come with the meter, were too fine. So I used thicker lancets.

The lancets that came with the meter are intended for humans; they were 28-gauge. With gauge, the higher the number, the thinner the needle. I had some lancets that were 25-gauge, so I changed and used those instead. Success! And I still didn't hurt Kumbi! He didn't complain at all!

Waiting for the blood drop to well up

It's the wait that can be a bit hard for the dog, and for the human, too! But with a good prick, the blood should begin to well up quite soon. If it doesn't, I prick again, fairly close to the prick I've been waiting for. OneTouch Customer Care told me NOT to "milk" the prick site to make the blood come up, because doing so releases fluids from between the cells, and that can corrupt the reading for glucose.

Kumbi can get a little restless if I wait too long, so a second prick can be helpful. After all, his mouth might be feeling a bit dry by now, exposed to air that way. Also, I'm careful not to hold the lip too hard.

Holding too hard may also reduce the bleeding somewhat.

If Kumbi gets too restless, I let him go, rather than suffer the setback of making him miserable. If I stay relaxed, Kumbi stays quite relaxed, even though he Does Not Like Procedures.

I do not fight with my dog

Over the years with my dogs, I learned to give with the dog when the dog is uncomfortable. The results are wonderful. My dogs have learned to cooperate, for nail trims, grooming and - pricking for blood samples!

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