Hello,
Does anyone know if household cleaning products (I.e. Clorox wipes, coney, scrubbing bubbles, winded, 409) affect blood glucose readings?
I’m new to the club 
Oops! I meant comet & windex.
I am fairly new myself but do recall being told at the hospital the alcohol on the cleaning wipes would affect it, if your hands not being completely clean affects it too I am thinking cleaning products would as well.
Thank you! I was originally diagnosed T2 then with persisting symptoms and more testing it was confirmed I’m actually T1. As a result of having not been hospitalized and being the recipient of T2 counsel, I feel I’ve missed out on some vital info. for managing T1D.
Thank you!
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Brittani @bdv69685,
The best and safest cleansing for fingerstick BG checks is washing with soap and water and rinsing thoroughly. Many other agents, including alcohol, could affect a reading.
Even if you had spent two weeks in hospital you would not have been told this - it is said in “fine print” . When I was hospitalized recently, there was only one nurse out of many who had heard the advice I just wrote above so you probably would not have been told that.
I welcome you here at TypeOneNation and invite you to visit here often, share your experience with T1 and ask questions.
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Thanks Dennis! It’s going to take several hand washes to scrub off all the cleaner residue on my cleaning days. Perhaps I’ll wear gloves.
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Wow I never knew there was a correlation, thanks for the insight.
Never knew this and was never told … thanks my 10yo daughter new T1D … day 8.
I don’t know about any of this. Why didn’t my endocrinologist tell me this on day one?
You mean to tell me I coulda used my T1 status to get out of cleaning toilets and what not these past 16 months!!! I am totally looking this up. This is every guys dream. A doctors note to get out of housework… Now, I just need to work on my “sad face” when I tell my wife.
Yeah Andrew @AJZimmerman, washing with soap & water is the advised procedure and is in the instruction brochure that comes with BG Check-strips. DexCom in their CGM manuals stresses, in blod print, that soap & water must be the hand-cleaning method when doing device calibrations.
I don’t think that the fact you need to wash your hands with soap & water after cleaning the toilets would get you very far with your wife - at least not with mine; she would say "clean your hands for BG Checking just as you do after eating the jelly donuts.
Nice try Andrew! I’m glad I have a housekeeper! I don’t really stress over the hand cleaning unless I’ve been eating something which might still be on my hands. Soap, water, dry, test. I will tend to get enough blood out of my finger to counteract any possibility. Hand sanitizers have alcohol which could affect results (doubtful, if thoroughly dry). My first endo suggested that I wasn’t washing my hands correctly when I talked about highs. I wanted to punch him. (I, too, am an MD. I think I know how to wash my hands.)
Oops. I’ve been doing it wrong then.
I used to be more thorough. These days, when its test time, i usually just pick the finger that looks the cleanest.
I should probably change my lancet, too…
Sometimes if I’m out fishing or something and can’t wash my hands, I take Dr Bernstein’s advice and lick that finger first.
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Haha. We do the best we can. Lancets (and needles) are expensive. I don’t (per my medical and public health degrees) recommend testing without complete sterilization and changing needles and lancets every single time, but WTF, lick your fingers, wipe them on your jeans and move on… is your reading 100% accurate? No, and will never be! Don’t stress so much. You’re going to be close. Close is good.