If you live with diabetes, you probably measure your blood sugar regularly (and if you don’t, I highly recommend you make it a habit).
Measuring your blood sugar is an important part of diabetes management, but when you do it a lot, it can become painful and lead to calluses on the fingertips.
The Genteel Lancing Device can help prevent that!
Disclaimer: I received the Genteel Lancing Device for free to test it. The post contains Amazon affiliate links.
There are different guidelines for how often you should measure your blood sugar. The guideline I follow is “I’ll measure as much as I need to.”
On average, I probably measure 8-12 times daily and that means poking my fingers with a lancet device to draw blood about 70 times a week or 3650 times a year….
That much finger pricking obviously means that my fingertips often look like pin cushions. What the Genteel Lancing Device promises, and delivers on, is less pain (!) and the option of drawing blood from anywhere on the body!
How the Genteel Lancing Device works
It’s actually pretty clever. The device is larger than your usual harpoon lancet device since it’s designed to create a vacuum and vibration to draw blood. The vacuum allows the Genteel lancet to not go as deep as normal lancets (aka avoid that “going to the bone” feeling) and only reach blood capillaries right beneath the skin. This means that it never hits a nerve!
To completely eliminate pain, the tip of the device also vibrates slightly when you use it. You won’t feel the vibrations, but they “distract” the area right around where you draw blood, which means that you hardly feel the lancet puncturing your skin.
The vacuum also eliminates the need to squeeze your finger (or other location). You simply push the bottom and the device sucks out the blood for you. It’s like a gentle vampire 😀 .
I know this sounds somewhat technical, so check out my video below to see how easy it actually is to use.
As you can see in the video, the tip of my Genteel Lancing Device is yellow. The tip adjusts the depth of the lancing and you can choose between 6 different depths, each with its own color. Yellow is the second shallowest and it works really well for my palm (which is now my favorite place to draw blood and allows me to give my fingers a break).
I also tried the blue (the one it comes with) and that didn’t go deep enough for me to get a decent blood drop. You may have to experiment a bit, but with 6 different options to choose from, it’s pretty safe to say that you can find one that works for you.
The lancets themselves are standard lancets and the device will work with almost any type of lancets from the major brands (One Touch UltraSoft, Bayer Microlet, Walgreens SuperThin, TiniBoy, CVS/Pharmacy Ultra Thin, etc.)
Test (almost) anywhere
If you read the section above and thought, “What? She tests on her palm? Can you do that?” then yes, you can test almost anywhere with the Genteel Lancing Device. It’s the only lancing device that’s FDA approved for “alternative site testing”, which basically means anywhere outside the fingertips.
I have used it on my palms, forearms, and legs, and it works great anywhere!
Are there any downsides?
As you can hear, I like this product quite a lot, but there are a few things I have to address.
The first is the size. It’s big! Some people love that, some people don’t. It makes it very easy to work with, but I personally find it too big to carry in some of my bags and purses. I have another lancing device I use when I go out and just have a small purse with me.
The second thing to consider is the price. It’s more expensive than most other lancing devices at $99. I think it’s worth it, but if you have never been bothered by normal lancing devices, it may not be worth it for you.
You can order the Genteel Lancing Device on Amazon.
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I am newly diagnosed and would love to try this device but it seem very expensive. I would love to enter the drawing to get one
We don’t have any giveaways with Genteel at this time
Yes, you can see the two winners in the giveaway form. We have also contacted them directly.
You can enter by clicking on the Giveaway links at the end of the post. So just scroll up above the comments and my bio and you’ll see the 6 entry options
I have so many callouses on my fingertips that I have to try many times to find a place that will bleed to test my blood sugar.
Christel Oerum is very knowledgeable and well qualified in Diabetes information. I like following her and learn from her.
My poor fingers are raw, living with this crazy disease for 40 years! I would love to try this new device!!!
I hear you, that’s why I was pretty excited trying this. You’re welcome to participate in the draw (see end of the post) and maybe contact your insurance to see if they’ll cover it