• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Do you pay for your test strips etc ??

hpotter44

Newbie
Messages
4
Hi I am wondering how many of you actually pay for your test strips and finger prickers?

I was recently diagnosed type 2 diabetic and told that I had to fund my own blood glucose equipment. Yet I was told that I am now prescription exempt!!!!

Well I did some research :roll: (Lucky due to working in a hospital) I came across the Nice guidelines for National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in Type 2 diabetes.

Other words the management of type 2 diabetes May 2008. It clearly states to offer self monitoring of newly diagnosed diabetics and to those on medication i.e Metformin.

I highlighted all the relevant information and stuck it under my Gp's nose and walked out after with a prescription for all equipment.

Do you feel brave enough?? and want to try yourself?

Here is the link www.nice.org.uk/CG066

You have nothing to loose and your Gp can only say no, if he dares,lol

Good luck to the brave :)
Hayley x
 
I've been type 2 for five years, and until recently had to pay for my own test strips as I was at first only diet/exercise controlled, and latterly on Metformin as sole medication for diabetes. I was told that under these regimes it was not policy to prescribe test strips.
However, I am now also taking Gliclazide, and this means I occasionally go hypo; I told the DN at my recent review that I felt it was essential to test before driving to ensure the safety of myself and others, and I've now got a reasonable number of test strips on repeat prescription.
 
I buy my own. When I was first diagnosed, I asked my GP, and he did offer to prescribe me some, but I think that the quantity was ridiculously small 10 strips a month or something, so I politely declined.

I have a good job, but I do find the cost of testing to be a pain. If I tested as much as I'd like to, it'd cost me well over a thousand pounds per year.

I'm switching meters from an Accuchek Mobile to a Contour USB, because I can get the strips for the latter when I'm in the US, at about half the price of the UK ones.
 
just recently started testing bloods again after being put on a no carb diet so losing weight rapid and got some test strips on prescription accuchek replace you old tester free of charge/////all in all wish i had been told about this diet years ago because im off gliclazide and sugars are normal ish its great but 850 cals a days not fun
 
I pay for everything asa my doctor is totally opposed to self testing. I'm trying to control by diet and exercise and have needed the information from testing to understand diet effects. I test less than I'd like but still at least once a day (fasting) plus any new food or if I've had a binge. I guess I can afford it so the bigger problem for me is that I can't discuss any issues it raises with the doctor because of her closed mind. The doctor sets the policy for the practice so the DSN is bound by this policy. I may change practice eventually due simply to this attitude problem and the tendency to medicate everyone immediately.
...... sorry for the rant!
 
Back
Top