OLD diabetes equipment

I have been searching and searching and searching and searching and searching... well, you know. I was diagnosed in 1984 with type 1 diabetes and my mother tells me that when I was diagnosed she made sure that I had all of the top of the line equipment to make sure that I would be as healthy as possible. I have been researching for awhile now and have not been able to find a picture of the first blood glucose meter that I had. I remember that it was an Accu-Chek meter and it was supposed to be one of the very best at that time. The only thing that I've been able to find is a picture of this Reflolux meter that seems to look a lot like the Accu-Chek meter that I remember when I was 8 years old. Mine was a beige color with brown buttons but had the same shape as this one. I have never even heard of Reflolux. Why is it that I can't find any information or pictures of the early Accu-Chek meters or test strips?

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Permalink Reply by Tim on August 4, 2011 at 2:10pm
I used Chemstrips from the very early 80's all the way until they stopped making them in ... 1998? 1999?

Although my web browsing leads me to believe that Chemstrips are still sold in Europe and called "Betachek".

As to the Ames Glucometer... they may have been the first but the test strips but they were nothing to write home about compared to Chemstrips. Occasionally Chemstrips would be unavailable and I'd end up with a bottle of Ames test strips (fuzzy pads) instead. Having to wash the blood off with water to read them, and their EXTREME sensitivity to humidity made testing such a PITA.

The one good thing about the Ames Eyetone meter... was that it had a startling resemblance to a Star Trek Tricorder:

Permalink Reply by Jared on August 4, 2011 at 2:17pm
OMG. I never realized that Spok was diabetic. wow! :P
Permalink Reply by MegaMinxX on August 2, 2011 at 4:11pm
I also remember using the Accu-check in 80's, although to save money I cut the strips in 1/2 and read visually at first (less blood too !) . Later I used whole strips with meter reads.

But did anyone else have a Merlin ???
Permalink Reply by Jared on August 2, 2011 at 8:03pm
Sorry Pat. I've never heard of a Merlin meter but then I had never heard of Reflolux even though I've been T1 for 27 years now. Couldn't find any information or pictures of the Merlin but now I'm curious. This discussion has been a great help to me. Who knows what will happen. :)
Permalink Reply by MegaMinxX on August 2, 2011 at 8:27pm
Hi Jared,

a Merlin was a separate 'electronic log book' device that attached to the Accu-chek. My memory is fuzzy, but I think it was used to enter additional information such as insulin, food, and exercise as 'events', and by attaching to the Accu-chek, it would automatically transfer BG readings.. The data could be uploaded from the Merlin to a PC. I think I did my own graphs and reports in Lotus or Excel.

Today my insulin pump and CGMS take care of all that logging for me..

Hoping someone else here remembers it, and can confirm my fuzzy memory !
Permalink Reply by Jared on August 3, 2011 at 7:30am
Hi Pat,

I'm still trying to find a picture of the Merlin Electronic Notebook but I did find this...

DIABASS® (DIABetes ASSistent)

This looks like it might have been the software that was used with the Merlin. I'll keep searching for a picture. I am even more curious now.
Permalink Reply by Scott E on August 3, 2011 at 5:33am
I remember the term Merlin, vaguely, but never had one. I do remember the whole thing about slicing the strips lengthwise in half; there were even companies that sold devices to do that, though the manufacturers warned not to.

Of course, when we moved away from visual reading to the meters, we couldn't do that anymore.

Here's an image of the color-chart that we used to compare. (Thanks, Kerri, from sixuntilme.com!) If we were running high, we had to try to guess where we fell on the color-chart between 240 and 400!
Permalink Reply by Lois on August 2, 2011 at 8:17pm
Jared:

I haven't read what others have said yet, but my suggestion is to call AccuChek (actually Roche) and ask for their customer relations dept. I am sure they would trip over themselves to help. Every time I have trouble with a meter, they either help me solve the problem or just send me a new one ..... FREE! They have even sent me an extra because you should have a back-up meter in case of losing it, someone stealing it or some other stupid thing I have done!

Good luck and let us know.

Lois

P.S. 800-858-8072; 24/7.
Permalink Reply by Capin101 on August 3, 2011 at 9:12am
What a great topic! I vaguely remember the old Accu-Check. I had it right after diagnosis for a few months. Then my family got me the Accu-Check II.

If I recall correctly, the Accu-check II took 2 minutes to test your BG. At 57-59 seconds it let out short beeps and at 60 seconds it let out a long beep to let you know to wipe the blood off the strip and then you would stick the end of the strip into the Accu-check II to be read at 2 minutes. I used cotton balls to wipe the blood off the stip and those strips took so much blood that you could only wipe off maybe a dozen strips (maybe 20 at most) before the cottonball was unusable.
Permalink Reply by Scott E on August 3, 2011 at 9:17am
I used a tissue. With cotton balls, there were always little threads of cotton stuck to the strip. But I remember that my "test kit bag" held a bloody mess of tissues. In between wrapping it around my finger until the bleeding stopped (the large lancet and the guillotine Autolet didn't make for easy healing like today's lancing devices!) and wiping off test strips, these tissues were truly a bloody, repulsive mess.

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