I have a question about meters and test strips. I am all of a sudden old enough to get Medicare (amazingly shocked when it happened too, because in my heart I know for sure I am only 35.......). Anyway, my meter and test strips are paid for between Medicare and my supplemental insurance. Problem is, I think they only allow a certain number of them. Mine are prescribed as 'twice a day' which isn't really enough for me to get a good handle on what my blood sugar is doing. I wanted to do a really good profile so for 10 days I have tested 4 times a day. I would like to continue that for a little longer until I have an idea what meals cause spikes, what time of day does it, etc. My question is: Since I am not allowed to buy extra test strips for my meter as they are on prescription, I wonder if it is possible to buy a whole new (extra) meter, probably a generic, cheaper one, and then purchase over the counter test strips for that. This would be a one time thing, I know it would be pricy, but I am willing to do it for a short time if it gets me the information I want. I want to know a lot more than 'twice a day' for a time. Anyone?

Welcome, Rose1942!

The ReliOn meter and strips sold at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club are among the least expensive. In my experience, their readings match my more expensive meters. For a picture and typical prices, see:

http://www.relion.com/diabetes/bloo...ose_testing.asp

The TrueTrak meters sold at CVS and WalGreens are also relatively inexpensive. I have one of those, which I bought on vacation when I forgot to pack a meter and strips.

The least expensive name brand meter and strips is probably the AccuChek Active. I have one of those and use it when I get good deals on strips over eBay.

If you want to buy online, but don't want to use eBay, the EasyGluco Blood Glucose Monitoring System is probably the least expensive. (I read about it at Rick Mendosa's diabetes website and, yes, I have one of those, too. ) It's about $12.99 for the meter and $18.79 for 50 test strips.

Rose, as far as I know, you can purchase any test strips you want without a prescription in the US. Your doctor may have written a prescription for them (and some insurance companies require a script from your doctor to cover the item) but that doesn't mean a prescription is required to purchse them on your own. You would have to pay for them yourself if the amount you want to use is greater than the number that Medicare allows each month, but IMO the information that you will gain is well worth the added out of pocket expense.

Medicare's coverage for test strips is 100 strips every 3 months for a non-insulin user and 100 test strips each month for someone who uses insulin. IMO that's woefully inadequate but it is what it is.

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MLNMattersAr...oads/SE0738.pdf

Thanks Carolyn and Lisa, your input has helped very much. Curiously (to Lisa's comment) my pharmacy would not sell me test strips for my meter. They said since it is a prescription, they were not allowed to. I thought that rather odd myself because test strips are not something taken as medicine. Even so, I am glad I don't have to buy those particular strips because they are like $50 bucks for 50 - way over my budget anyway! I will check out the other options Carolyn suggests and I am sure I will find something perfectly fine. As I say, I want to try and take control of the thing, and I cannot do that unless I know what my blood sugar is doing at all times of the day. Everyone is different, there is no one else that reacts exactly the same as me, or you. I am sure that eventually I will be able to instinctively know what to eat, and when, and how much, and how my body reacts, but until then, I am not comfortable with twice a day. Thanks again.

I've had really crazy experiences bying my supplies from Walmart. Medicare covers all of the expense of a 100 RelyOn strips except for $8. And I am always getting a small check back from them in the mail. I don't understand it, and beings they are always so nice about things I just give them whatever money they ask for.

I truly do feel for all of you struggling with health care issues and varying payment plans.

Ugh.

Something to look forward to another gov't agency telling me what is good for me and what is enough in terms of testing.

Next thing will happen is they will say anyone with an A1C is not diabetic if it is under 7.0 and not allow us anything.

Sorry, a little sarcasm. It is scary. The insurance companies are telling the Doctors when we are sick and just how we should be treated.

Not good.

On the other hand in countries that have it all covered such as Canada, they pay a steep price in terms of income tax compared to USA. They also have excellent services in terms of little things such as colds and broken limbs, etc., but don't get real sick like cancer. You are likely to die on a waiting list. I am not saying this to be nasty. It is reality. I talked with several Canadians while on a vacation last fall about this very subject. What many of them do, if they have the means to do it, is head down to USA when they have serious illnesses so that they don't wait on a list. A lung cancer patient needs early diagnosis and quick remedy; such as my wife and resolved it while in Stage 1A. She was lucky. Found out accidentally while having a cardiac catscan looking to see what issues she had with her heart and this was only because she asked the Doctor to do it. His remarks were you may not be covered; we said so what and we luckily were covered. Well, that saved my wife's life for sure.

Now, in Canada, she may or may not have detected it and then even so would end up on a waiting list for the necessary surgery and perhaps by the time surgery happened the disease would have advanced to a later stage dramatically reducing her chances of survivability.

OK off my horse.

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Another choice you have, knowing that you manage your diet and BG quite well is to skip a day or two of testing and be very good on those days. Then you have conserved enough strips to do a good hourly profile on another day as you are indicating.

Best wishes,

Ralph

I'd suggest getting the Relion. The strips are half what the Accu-Check strips are and I have never heard a bad word about their reliability.

I've had mixed results with the Tru-Tracks, myself. If you open the strips they go bad over time and can be very inaccurate.

Testing is worth every penny you pay for it as long as you test NOT out of curiosity but in order to make changes.

If you are willing to alter what you eat to improve the numbers you see, testing can change your life. If you are only curious to see how high you go after eating something and keep eating it, well, testing is a waste of money.

Sadly, a lot of people do the latter, which is why there are too many studies out there showing that testing doesn't have any effect on blood sugars.

So make a commitment to your self to test only to answer the question, "Can I eat this food and hit safe blood sugar targets?" and if the answer is "No" use that information to improve your blood sugar.

Thanks to everyone who has commented. I did go to
CVS today and bought an AccuChek, but I don't think it is working right at all. While my Bayer Contour (the pricy one with the pricy strips, that was set up and checked by the doctor's office for me and should be accurate) read a BG of 103 2 hours after lunch - 2 minutes later the new AccuCheck said 130. That was a bit scary! They do not include a control solution in the package and I didn't realize I would have to buy some. So I can't do anything with it and am going back to CVS and let them deal with it, or give me my money back. I do have control solution for the Bayer and did a test, and it tested well within normal range. I think that one is pretty accurate.

Ralph, good idea about alternating days, and I think that may be the best plan for me. But what I wanted to do first was to get a complete 2 or 3 week profile of every meal so that I could see what meals were the problem ones and what foods may have been the culprits. I have 2 weeks worth now and that may be a good start. Already I see quite a few no-no's and they are eeee-lim-in-aaaa-ted! For instance, cooked oatmeal, such a small amount as barely 1/2 cup - uh uh. I foolishly thought that I could eat up a few of the fruity low fat yogurts in the fridge but - no again! No also to a plain hot dog, which is supposed to be ok, but for me - it caused quite a raise.

I also am trying to determine whether some higher readings might be due to my not having fully digested the previous meal, thus causing a problem when I eat again, even after 4 or 5 hours. Sometimes I think that may be the case because I can see no food that looks too carbed or sugared to blame.

Lotta, thanks to you also for your remarks. I am definitely doing the frequent testing to eliminate the bad stuff and NOT to overeat of the things that are borderline. Many things are now 'poison' in my mind, I don't care if I ever see them again. In fact, since I started doing this I have a smaller appetite anyway, probably due to the fact that this food is much more satisfying and is not so quickly digested and metabolized as carb-y things. And actually I am not really cooking or eating any differently except that I have dropped the carbs and sugars and added a little more fat - like I am not guilty when using butter now! Tonight at supper I was unable to finish a pretty small burger (no bread of course) because I had wiped out my spinich and raw veggie salad with blue cheese first! This while my husband was enjoying a dinner of pasta with sauce and I didn't even want one bite!

Rosie -

If it has carbs than it is poison.

When you think about Bernstein's 6-12-12 and maybe another 12 plan of carbs for breakfast, lunch, dinner and optional additional meal you must realize that is not a lot of carbs.

I loved oatmeal. It was my favorite breakfast. Take a look at the carbs in a 1/2 cup or cup of oatmeal. It kind of exceeds all the carbs for a day that low carbers try to stick to.

Yesterday, I stayed very close to 6-12-12 and boy does it show the results.

I was darn close to the total 30 for the day with 5 hours fasting periods in between meals; good results. This has to be my way of life.

I love fruit, but again it is carbs. You can experiment with fruit. Some will metabolize slowly and you won't get a spike, but others forget about it and it varies by individual. Forget my weightwatchers program, which probably put me here with all the high carbs.

I am up to 20 units of basil insulin via the Levemir Flex Pen now. Yesterday my average readings were finally under 100. That is my goal and I am going to do it.

The weight is starting to come off again. The worry about gaining weight as a result of taking insulin I believe is only for those who use insulin to go back to their high carb way of eating.

I will continue to strive to stay between 30-60 grams of carbs per day and when I feel good about it strive for the 30 grams.

Good luck to you,

Ralph

Ralph,

One word: Berries!

Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. Low carb and full of nutrients you won't get from pills. I put frozen raspberries into my low carb pancakes. Buying them frozen makes them affordable.

Right, Ralph - carbs are poison. Yet I cannot seem to get quite all the way, and as I just posted to another thread, I have been having small portions of fruits with seemingly no spikes. Even 1/2 english muffin now and then, and small glass of milk, also now and then. But maybe I can get to where they are also a real rarity. I've only been doing this for a short time, so I am still adjusting. But - my numbers are improving every day so I must be on the right track. I am averaging BG 100-110 with some very impressive lows in the 80's and low 90's, around the clock now, a far cry from 3 weeks ago! Lotta - thanks for the Berries trick - I've forgotten that, I need to get some.

But.... woe is me ...... I blew it at lunch! After saying JUST above there how great my numbers have been, I feel obligated to confess that the 'snack lunch' that I ate at 1 pm totally blew it. My BG before this yummy snack was 81, and afterwards it was ... you'll see that below. That's what you get when you don't count the carbs BEFORE eating, and I learned a lesson from it. It was so innocent looking! 1 slice deli ham (2 gr. carb) -- 1 slice NY chedder (1 gr.) -- 1/4 cup plain lowfat yogurt (4 gr) -- 1 Wasa crispbread (10 gr.) -- 1/2 small apple (9 gr.) not to mention the sugar in the apple. This adds up to 26 carbs, yikes! No wonder my BG at 3 pm was 120! I might as well have just had a ham & cheese sandwich on bread! You can all start beating on me, I asked for it.

Full fat yogurt, like Greek yogurt, has fewer carbs and is vastly more delicious.

Nancy thanks - and I know that about Greek yogurt and other full fat ones. Problem is there has never been a store anywhere near me that carries it. In fact my daughter brings me some from NJ when she comes to visit - the stuff is fabulous. But now there is a Trader Joe's about 25 miles from here, just opened, and I hear they have a really good whole milk yogurt, so I am going there asap! Here is a nice article about great yogurts!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...FDGVA5909L1.DTL