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GP and meters

G

GNano

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I recently saw my diabetic nurse and she gave me a new meter to test my ketones in addition to this she wrote me a prescription to give to my GP for ketone test strips and BG testing strips. I put the prescription into my GP and they are refusing to give me my BG testing strips, I have to add that i already have a testing meter that i am not happy with so i assume that they refused it because of that but now i have to walk around with 2 meters and one is quite big.

Now the question is how i work around the this GP restriction as i know what the GP will say... "some gatekeeper decided that everyone in this area has to use the same meter". I find this hard to believe as when i saw my old tier 3 community doctor they had a box with all kinds of different meters.
 
Get the DSN to write to your Dr and say that you need bg strips for the new meter, but in the mean-time just carry around your old bg meter and leave the new ketone meter at home, you don't really need to carry around a ketone meter unless your ill, I never do.
 
I assume your new meter tests both ketones and BG so you are planning to ditch your old meter.

In my experience my GP does not know one end of a BG (or ketone) meter from the other so will have no clue why you have changed.
In your position, I would just explain that my current (old) meter is not fit for purpose because it cannot test for ketones. Therefore you need BG test strips for your new meter. I would not put the idea into your GP's head that you could carry around both.
You do not explain why you are not happy with your old meter but you could explain this to your GP too.
One meter cannot fit all - we have different requirements for ketone testing, automatic dosage calculation (or not), poor eyesight needing a bigger screen (or not), ability to upload to Diasend for diabetes team to review (or not), ruggedness, ...
 
Agree with @noblehead your DSN needs to write to your GP explaining the reasons why you need the strips, and that your t1 and need to test for ketones. Personally I use urine strips to test for ketones if I have the need to do so which is pretty rare.
 
I haven't tested for ketones ever. I'm not sure why you would want to test for that. I think you use urine dipsticks not a meter.
 
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