[Opening Music]

CAS: Hello, Dr Adkins SARAH: Hello, Cas. How are you? CAS: I am good. I am good. SARAH: It's so nice to finally meet you. CAS: It's nice to Meet you too. SARAH: You can call me Sarah. CAS: Oh, okay I'll call you Sarah. Hi Sarah. SARAH: That's fantastic. So nice to meet you. CAS: So I have been sent to you to begin my journey to learn about my levels. 

SARAH: Okay. CAS: And I- I drew the short straw and I get to learn how to use a glucometer. SARAH: Yeah, you do. Alright. CAS: I'm excited. SARAH: It will be, it'll be okay. CAS: It will be. SARAH: I think it's a lot at first. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: But once you get the process down, it'll go very, very quickly. CAS:  Awesome. SARAH: Okay, my friend, here we go. Let's bringing all the, all the tools here that we're gonna need to use. 

CAS: This is a lot of Tools. SARAH: It's A lot of tools. I thought it would be good to show you all the pieces. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: Um, in separate spaces. Sometimes when you get the meter, they have all these things that come with it. Um, but this one doesn't. So I wanted to have all the things available so we could look at all of it together. CAS: Okay. Right. SARAH: And I always wanna keep my handy dandy sharp's container. 

CAS: That's a tide bottle. SARAH: It is a tide bottle. It is. So just so you know, it can double as a sharps container. CAS: Ah, okay. SARAH: And has the nice lid on it. And it's the nice solid plastic. So you can put all your sharps in this. It's like reduce, reuse, recycle. CAS: Exactly. SARAH: See that? And then when you're done, when it's almost full, you just cap it and throw it away. CAS: I like That. SARAH: I think so too. I, I'm, I'm gonna do that. That's, that's a really good Idea. SARAH: Hey, I like it. Hashtag winning. First thing we did for the day. CAS: Right. 

SARAH: Alright, so we're gonna keep our sharps container close. Close at hand. Alright. I have the rest of my, my kit here that we're gonna look at. We're gonna use a little, a little paper towel and all these little boxes. All CAS: This feels like wheel of fortune for your body. SARAH: Ding, Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, dinging, ding ding. SARAH: Like you wish it was a game show. CAS:A little bit. 

Sarah: You wish it was a game show. Okay, here we go Cas. We're gonna start from the beginning. CAS: Okay. SARAH: Okay, so this is your glucometer. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: We're gonna get this out first and I'm gonna show you what's in here and in this kit, just so you know, they give you all these cool directions just so you know if you need to look at it or if you forget what we talked about today, which this is a lot. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: You're probably gonna need the directions again. Alright. CAS: Alright. SARAH: So it's here. So if somebody else has to do this for you or if you forget how to do it, the instructions are in the box. CAS: Okay. CAS: So- SARAH: Alright. CAS: So this is the, this is the spark notes. That's the whole novel. SARAH: You got it. 

CAS: Okay. SARAH: That's exactly, that's exactly right. So this is like, yeah, the notes. And this is the novel. So if you need that, that's the novel. Some machines are super cool and they'll like have all this memory. Some of them are designed for hearing impaired. Some of of them are designed for sight impaired. So they have all kinds of cool things. Um, this is sort of a basic one and that's okay. Sometimes we can do with the basic as well. CAS: It's poked your finger, hope for the best. It is, I hope for the best. You also wanna write down your results. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: So this meter actually comes with a little booklet to write it down because it doesn't have memory with it. So you, this one you'll wanna write down every time you check your sugar so you can show it to your doctor. And also it's good for you to see too, right? CAS:  Mm-hmm. 

SARAH: Okay. So that's all the stuff that comes in that box with this meter. Alright. So we're gonna prep our space here before we take our blood sugar, right? Alright, we're gonna open up our meter. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: And this is a new meter and it comes in this little kit. So when you travel, you can put all your things into this little container and zip it up and take it with you. CAS: Okay. I like this. Pretty fancy SARAH: Fancy,  Pretty fancy. Pretty fancy. They're fancier ones. They're fancier ones. We're gonna take the plastic off the top of this. I think there are way too many people that forget to do that. So we're taking the plastic off and then we're gonna put our thing to the side as we're gonna check our sugar here. Okay? Okay. Alright my friend. Let's wash our hands… 

CAS: Okay. SARAH: First, so we're gonna wash our hands. We're gonna do this because not only does it clean our hands to get rid of bacteria, but it's gonna warm up our fingers. So there's gonna be blood that comes with the tips. CAS: Uh, that's the part I'm dreading. SARAH: We're gonna really wash our hands, not just pretend to wash our hands, but we're just pretending right now. CAS: Right? SARAH: Okay. Alright. So we got our little meter out. Let's get all of our things prepped and ready before we stick our finger. Okay? Alright. So we're not trying to have blood on our finger and try to prep all of our things. So all of our kits, we got our blood glucose meter, we have something called a Lancet device. 

CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: We're gonna open this up too. So we're gonna look at it. Oftentimes inside your Lancet device, we'll be Lancets. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: The things with Lancet and Lancet devices is they usually go together, but if you find a Lancet that fits in your device, I'm just gonna point out, you can see that this is not the same thing as a ReliOn, like it's not the same brand, but when we compare these Lancets, CAS: it's the same fit. SARAH: Exactly same fit. CAS: Nice. SARAH: So I'm gonna show the camera there. It's the same fit and we're gonna look at it and see this's the same fit. CAS: Yep. The same fit. SARAH: So this will work in that device. So we're gonna leave these in the package, maybe save those for another day, or put these in our little kit for later. So we're gonna put this off to the side and we're gonna look at our Lancet device. 

SARAH: Okay. Um, so you have to get your Lancet to fit your Lancet device. Your Lancet devices will have a gauge on them. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: How close or how, um, far away, like how deep you wanna poke the finger. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: If somebody has calluses, you'll probably wanna use a deeper end. But if your fingers are pretty tender and you haven't done this before, um, you could start at the very, at the very far end. But usually people start with about three. CAS: Okay. SARAH: Usually we start about halfway. Okay. So we're gonna open up our Lancet device and this is where our Lancet goes right in this end. 

CAS: Okay. SARAH: Okay. We're gonna, so we're gonna put our Lancet in. What we wanna do first is put the Lancet with this still this top on CAS: mm-hmm. SARAH: Into the device so that needle's not sticking out so you can engage that Lancet device. We pushed it in just far enough so it clicked. CAS: Right? SARAH: Right. So now it's in, it's engaged, it's ready to, for us to push the button when we're ready to do that. All right. We're gonna take the top off. Now we at that needle. Can you see it 

CAS: Like look, Like I, Yep. That-that-that SARAH: Do you glasses To see It is pretty little. 

CAS: A little bit. SARAH: Little Bit. CAS: Baby needle. SARAH: All right. Once we have that Lancet engaged, we're gonna put the top back on. Now we're gonna dial it. Now, from what I understand, you're gonna do this? CAS: Yes. SARAH: You're actually gonna stick your finger for us today? CAS: Yes. This is happening live. SARAH: It's happening Live. Live and in person. CAS: Yes. SARAH: Live and in person. So I wanna know from you where you wanna dial this to. CAS: Um, Well my, my fingers are pretty, pretty, the skin's pretty, pretty thick. SARAH: Pretty thick CAS: So let's go To four. SARAH: Let's go to four. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm gonna put it at a four. CAS: Mm-hmm. 

SARAH: And this is ready for us to go. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: Right now this is ready to go. I'm gonna put it down for a second though. 'cause we're gonna prepare the rest of this stuff before we poke your finger, we're gonna make sure that we have the rest of the stuff prepared. CAS: Okay. SARAH: Right. So these are test strips. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: Test strips are really specific to the machine that you're using. Mm-hmm. Right? So you can't just use any test strip with any machine. You have to use the correct test strip with the correct machine. So we have a ReliOn machine, we're using ReliOn test strips. So this is a case of 25 and this is what they look like. So I'm gonna pull out our test strips. I'm gonna show you what they look like here. This is what it looks like in the bottle. CAS: Okay. SARAH: Okay. That's what we got in here. CAS: Mm-hmm. 

SARAH: I also would encourage you to double check the expiration date to make sure that they're end date. There's usually a lot number and expiration on this bottle- CAS: There it is. SARAH:  was at the top of the package this time. So I gonna just check that lot and expiration just to make sure that it's looking. Okay. So there's your expiration sheet. 04/20/26. So we're still good. We're in date on these. And this is a little teeny tiny thing here. So one end says insert with an arrow. CAS: That makes sense. SARAH: I Think it does too. Alright, so guess what we're gonna do with that one? CAS: You want insert insert? SARAH: We're gonna insert it into the device. Alright. So I think we should decide if we're ready to do this. Okay. CAS: Alright, let's, SARAH: Are we ready to do this? CAS: Let's go ahead and do it. SARAH: I think that we should go ahead and clean your finger. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: And do this, I'm gonna insert this at the same time. CAS: Okay. SARAH: I'm gonna say this, this, this. CAS: Okay. SARAH: Got it. So tear. I always tear like half a middle. Very good. 

CAS: This one feels ready. SARAH: Does it feel ready? CAS: It feels prepared. SARAH: Oh, I love that. It's nice and warm. CAS: Yeah. SARAH: You're gonna get some blood flowing. CAS: Yes. SARAH: Blood flowing. Alright, I'm gonna move this all outta the way for us. So that's outta your way. I'll take that from you. All right, beautiful. We're gonna let that dry while we're letting that dry. I'm gonna insert this into our machine. CAS: Okay. SARAH: Okay. So we're gonna insert, and I'm not gonna touch the end down here actually, what's kind of cool is our device is saying that it's ready for that blood to be put onto that, to that test strip. So if we can look at that too. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: Show 'em what it says. It says it's ready. CAS: It's like Feed Me. SARAH: It says I'm ready. Feed me. Feed me Seymour. CAS: I'm Thinking that. 

SARAH: Alright, I'm gonna hand this to you and all you gotta do is push this little gray button. 'cause remember it's already engaged. Oh. And make sure on when you poke your finger, don't use the pad. It's so sensitive. There. You wanna stick the sides of your fingers. Alright. So not the, not the pat or the tip, but the sides CAS: About here. SARAH: That's very good. CAS: The juicy part. SARAH: That's a good spot. So he's pushing right here. CAS: The juicy part. SARAH: Nice and juicy. Okay. Give it a go. Oh. Or not, 

CAS: Okay. I, I think I figured it out. SARAH: Okay. You're gonna push this gray button when you're ready. There it is. Alright. We got lots of blood. Let's give it a quick wipe. Now bring that out and we're gonna touch it to the end of this. We're gonna touch it right to the end. So Cas has some blood coming out right here. 

SARAH: Alright, I think we're good. And we're gonna watch what it says here. That's actually good. You're at 1 0 8 right now. CAS: Yay. SARAH: Look, you did it yourself. CAS: Yay. SARAH: You did so good. Alright. Wonderful. There's just a little teeny bit of blood that comes onto the end. It sucks it right in. And how you doing? CAS: I barely Even see It. SARAH: How you doing? Do you need a bandaid or anything? CAS: No, I'm good. it- SARAH: oh my gosh, it's amazing. CAS: closed up. SARAH: Okay. You did fantastic. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: Well done. CAS: Whew. We Did it. SARAH: I'm so proud of you. CAS: Alright, so, so just to remember. SARAH: Yeah. CAS: Um, so with this one, it doesn't have built-in memory. So you got, so make sure to take notes. SARAH: Yes. 

CAS: And so that way you keep a record. Um, and our sharps, did we, did we, did we remove the our SARAH: We can take our sharp outta here. CAS: Our sharp Out. Okay. Then just... SARAH: Perfect. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: Oh, you know what else we wanna do? CAS: What? SARAH: Let's take this off. 'cause that has a little bit of blood on it. CAS: Yes. So put it in. SARAH: You Got it. CAS: Alright. So just the biggest things to remember is do this as much as your doctor directs you to do it. Right? SARAH: SARAH: Correct. And so oftentimes they'll want you to take it maybe before a meal or after a meal. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: So they can see what your levels are. Sometimes we talk about preprandial, which is right before you eat. CAS: Mm-hmm. SARAH: Or postprandial, which is just after you eat. So we know what those numbers are. When you take in that glucose or those carbohydrates, what does that sugar look like? CAS: Wonderful. SARAH: You know what else, what I want you to do, CAS: What? 

SARAH: don't forget to write your 1 0 8 in Your book. CAS: Oh yes. I need to write the 1 0 8 in my book. All right. So we're gonna go ahead. SARAH: You got it. CAS: Write the 1 0 8. Um, we gonna put it in other SARAH: Day one. CAS: It is it Look, We have it in SARAH: day one, Cas. 

CAS: Woo. SARAH: Wonderful. Now you have it in your book. Now you can show your doc when you take it next time. CAS: Awesome. Thank you so much. SARAH: You are so welcome. You did wonderful. You did very good. I hope you have a good rest of your day.CAS:  All right. SARAH: You got the hang Of this. CAS: You too. I got, I got this. I got it. CAS: You got it. SARAH: Thank you. CAS: Take care. 

[Closing Music]