Thanks for writing to the question forum.

Sorry to hear that your fingers are splitting and sore from your blood glucose testing.

To help stop this, it’s really important to make sure that you are changing your fingers all the time when you test.  It’s a good idea to change the lancet every time you do a fingerprick as well because a blunt one will make your fingers sore. You also need to do your fingerprick on the side of your fingers not on the pads or the tip.

On most fingerprickers there is a depth setting.  The lowest number that you dial up will not go too deeply into your finger. If you are getting lots of blood when you prick your finger, it’s a good idea to turn down the depth setting. This will make it hurt less and your fingers will be less sore.

In winter sometimes your hands can become dry and cracked from the cold weather, try moisturising your hands with a good hand cream to stop this from happening. But make sure you wash your hands before doing a test.

There are many different fingerprickers on the market.  Some of them are for alternate site testing such as on your hand or arm.  It might be a good idea to speak to your diabetes educator about this. Also ask your diabetes educator about your fingerpricker, they might recommend something different for you if they think it will help your fingers.

We hope this helps you?