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A history lesson?

urbanracer

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Retired Moderator
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Worthing, UK.
Type of diabetes
Type 1
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Not being able to eat as many chocolate digestives as I used to.
I'm feeling too lazy to search on the internet so thought I'd just ask some of you directly:-

As I'm fairly new to this lark I was wondering, roughly when did people first start daily home monitoring of BG levels???

My question is prompted by a post in the testimonials forum where someone is saying that his HbA1c has been on target for many years and I was wondering how you knew what was going on between hospital visits?
 
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I have been testing for 26 years and the meters were like bricks in the beginning, huge and also the wee on a stick as well
It would fascinating and very interesting to hear from members 30, 40, 50 years + wow, what a journey.
 
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Robinredbreast said:
I have been testing for 26 years and the meters were like bricks in he beginning, huge and also the wee on a stick as well
It would fascinating and very interesting to hear from members 30, 40, 50 years + wow, what a journey.
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Thanks RRB that's interesting - so even 26yrs ago you were performing home testing (of sorts). How accurate were the devices, any idea?

BTW - what's wrong with wee sticks, there's a doctor writing on the IDDT website recommending it.
 
urbanracer said:
Thanks RRB that's interesting - so even 26yrs ago you were performing home testing (of sorts). How accurate were the devices, any idea?

BTW - what's wrong with wee sticks, there's a doctor writing on the IDDT website recommending it.
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Hi, no nothing wrong with the wee sticks really, but a bit of a hit and miss sometimes lol. It's interesting to know that a doctor is recommending them again, interesting to see how that goes.
tbh I can't remember exactly how accurate the testing was, hopefully good to very good. At least we had testing then, makes me wonder, without googling, when it was actually first introduced for good diabetes management and control. I love the history side of these type of things, especially from very long serving type 1's. Great thread, thumbs up
 
When I was first home bg testing, the monitors weren't free. You had to pay £500 for them (in the eighties) so they were really expensive. You used to check the colour of the strip against the outside of the canister to know where your bg was.

The older tests were in test tubes!
 

I think the orange, red, was the alert colours ?
 
Home testing came in at about the same time as so called human insulin so 1982 or there about.
 
I was diagnosed in 1978 and didn't use the wee strip but used a Clinitest set where I'd to put drops of urine and water into a small test tube and add a Clinitest tablet. It all fizzed up and ended up blue if there was no sugar or orange if there was lots of sugar (2%?), with various shades of green in between. I would've loved the strips!

In 1982 I was given BM strips to test my blood. They weren't on prescription at that time but a new consultant persuaded the hospital to fund them.

In 1985, the clinic gave me a blood glucose machine to use during my first pregnancy, and did the same during my second pregnancy in 1987. Both of these involved washing the blood off the strip. Thank goodness for progress!
 
And with the bm strips, on twice daily injections, you were expected to test over a periodic cycle, before break fast on one day, two hours after the next, and the same for each meal and night time over an eight day period, creating a nice pattern in your log book...
 
@robert72 has an exotic collection of photos of testing kit from Ye Darke Ages ( I secretly think he still has them stashed in his attic !)

Lots of replies here from Type 1's, but can anyone tell me if Type 2's were encouraged to test back in the days of Clinitest ? If not, when did that start ?

Signy
 
Hi 1976 was the Clinitest tube kit. Then i moved on & was given pee strips that were a pig to match the pastel shades to the Dulux chart with the colour blindness of a hypo... LOL

Around the late 80s i was put on MDI & given a blood meter.. Finally no more "water sports".. I was at a dance school in Surrey at the time away from home & it was felt my lifestyle a little unpredictable.. My first meter was about the size they are now. I remember putting a vampire sticker on it to personalize & getting tutts at the clinic when i pulled the meter out...
 
We could go earlier still Apollinaire Bourchadat 1809-1886) devised a test for his patients to be able to measure glucose in urine. He used a test called Trommer's test which involved putting urine, together with copper suphate and potash into a testube and then heating the solution. His patients had to do the test daily.
“this daily measurement of glucosuria guides patients like the compass that guides the sailor on unknown oceans”
http://www.diabetologia-journal.org/webpages/covers/2005/january.html
 

Interesting article, thanks Pheonix. (300ml for the blood test though, wow !)
 
I'd somehow been under the impression the home monitoring was quite a recent thing. Guess I was wrong.

Thanks everyone for your comments.
 
As I recall I had my first HbA1c test around the early 1980's. Before that it was hospital blood tests for a snapshot glucose result and home urine tests. Urine tests told you very little, a positive test showed your renal threshold had been exceeded - your blood glucose had been above 10mmol/L at some point in the previous few hours and your kidneys had been excreting glucose.

I was outraged when home blood glucose monitoring first appeared in the 1980's with BM strips as I was a stroppy teenager and could no longer manipulate my results. I used to use tap water instead of urine if my Mum demanded to see a test result not believing my results had been constantly negative for the past 6 months!
 
I was diagnosed at 14 (1972) and thankfully my parents were so relieved to see that I understood what I was doing, and left me to it.

I don't think they even knew that Clinitest was a thing

Oh, there was a fructosamine test before HbA1c but I don't remember if I had any.
 
Can't recall the exact year but it was around the late 80's when I first got a bg meter, it was the Reflolux S and its the only meter that I've ever bought, sure I paid somewhere around £120 for it.
 
Sadly I no longer have my Clinitest kit - lost in a house move

 
Awful memories @robert72, thank goodness we don't have to do that any-more.
 
noblehead said:
Can't recall the exact year but it was around the late 80's when I first got a bg meter, it was the Reflolux S and its the only meter that I've ever bought, sure I paid somewhere around £120 for it.
Click to expand...

Early 80's was my big blue reflolux. My dad paid £100 for it and it was kept in a small shoebox.

To be honest though I can't recall instructions I was given for testing...
 
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