Wasting test strips...makes me so mad!

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Permalink Reply by Sandra burke on August 5, 2009 at 8:31pm

Justin, I have the Accu Check Ultra and sometimes I get in a hurry and don't get enough on there or I smear the blood and mine does the same thing. ERRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!It make me furious. Usually when I am on a roll I don't just waste one it is a couple. since my supplies are out of pocket it can get mighty expensive. Good luck and I guess we should sit back and take our time and make sure everything is done right.

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Permalink Reply by Anthony Holko on August 7, 2009 at 4:37pm

I find I have to take the gard off the lancet to get a good prick it hurts a bit more but otherwise one test strip out of 3 would be wasted.

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Permalink Reply by Hawley on August 8, 2009 at 2:42am

Reading this post led me to finding the two sites listed below. I am getting the feeling that I'm in need of a new meter. Got the One Touch because it was free/endo recommended it to go with my pump. Now I'm thinking I might need something different. I'm having way too many wasted strips. I think I'm going to read up and see what I can get. Even if you aren't looking into a new glucometer, some of the ones listed on these two sites are cool to look at(you can see some old ones that require a ton of blood).
http://www.mendosa.com/meters.htm
http://www.diabetesnet.com/diabetes_technology/blood_glucose_meters...

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Permalink Reply by Jim Wright on August 8, 2009 at 7:36am

This made me crazy with the One Touch strips and the DexCom CGMS (the older DexCom models will only work with One Touch). The One Touch strips take a lot of blood, or a lot more than the Freestyle, and if you don't fill the strip almost instantly, it will either error out, or, much more insidiously, sometimes complete the test but give readings which are much higher than you really are, so you can't trust it and you need to use another one.

The waste of money makes me nuts, but even more, having to draw blood again for the retest. Freestyle meters are vastly better for this reason, IMHO.

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Permalink Reply by Emmy on August 8, 2009 at 3:35pm

That's why I use the Freestyle Freedom meter. It requires the smallest blood sample of all the meters. No more wasted strips and wasted money! Plus you have up to either 30 or 60 seconds to fill the test strip. (not sure which)

Its great!

You can see this meter and the other two they make here

http://abbottdiabetescare.com/adc_dotcom/processProductSelectionFor...

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Permalink Reply by Jenn on August 9, 2009 at 6:19pm

I had a OneTouch Ultra until recently and had the same frustrating problems. However, now I use a FreeStyle Lite meter and am SO happy I switched! It won't start to read the sample until you have added enough blood, and it only takes a really small drop, so no more error messages! You can probably get one free from your endo, and it also has a light that will light up the monitor and/or the test strip area in case you have to test in a dim location. I recommend it 100%!!

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