TOWARDS LESSER PAIN DURING BLOOD SUGAR ESTIMATION
Ashish Bhalla,Ram Singh, Atul Sachdev, Dept. of General Medicine, G.M.C.H., Chandigarh.

Digits are commonly used for blood sugar monitoring in the clinical settings.   Being pain sensitive, this procedure leads to significant discomfort in some patients.   We tried to compare the pain produced by a lancet prick over the ring finger and ear lobe during blood sugar testing in emergency OPD at our hospital.  This prospective open study was conducted in 25 alert adult male patients.  The patients with altered sensorium, bleeding diasthesis and unconsciousness were excluded.  The selected patients were explained the procedure.  The sample for fasting blood sugar were drawn by giving a prick over ring finger and post meal sample was collected by earlobe pricking.  The pain was assessed with a hundred mm(100mm) visual analogue scale.  The failure to draw blood at first attempt was also noted.   The median pain experienced was 2.5mm in earlobe prick and 10 mm in ring finger prick.  The first attempt failure in earlobe prick were 6, while there was one failure in ring finger prick.  We conclude that the earlobe pricking for drawing blood for blood sugar measurement is less painful, but is associatd with marginally increased risk of first attempt failure.