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How many strips do you get through a month?

Thank you for explaining all of that Michael.
 
You're very welcome. And I enjoyed doing it, too.

Moreover it will serve as the basis of a letter I'll be writing to the doctor next week.

It's funny, I always used to have a GP.

But as yet, none of the doctors at the surgery I'm registered with seem to understand what I'm talking about. (It's that 'problem of communication' I mentioned.)

I sometimes feel like I'm in a living, breathing sequel to the story told in Jack Finney's The Body Snatchers. (It was written in the midst of the McCarthy era and the Cold War, of course.) Here's the opening paragraph:

"I warn you that what you're starting to read is full of loose ends and unanswered questions. It will not be neatly tied up at the end, everything resolved and satisfactorily explained. Not by me it won't, anyway."

And strange to tell, I'll be enclosing a few selected pages from that book - with a few highlightings - in the letter to the doctor. (The story's first-person narrator, incidentally, is a family doctor.)
 
I probably get through about 40 strips a month. I probably don't need to test every morning but knowing what level I am starting at gives me confidence that my regime is working. Gliclazide does bring additional needs for testing as it can make you more prone to hypos, but saying that in over 3 years that I have been taking it, I have never had a hypo.
 
Thanks Denise. 150 strips per annum seems very mean, bearing in mind your requirements, just for driving.
 
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I was told when I was prescribed the strips that I should test 2 - 3 times a week, this equates to the 150 strips a year (although this was before I was prescribed the Gliclazide). I probably could order more but I don't in case I get them stopped. I probably drive long distances every other week. So it works out at 30 strips for the daily tests 2 for the long distance drives and the other 8 for my intensive testing
 
On average 7 times a day according to my meter (I'm type 1).
 
))Denise(( said:
I was told when I was prescribed the strips that I should test 2 - 3 times a week, this equates to the 150 strips a year (although this was before I was prescribed the Gliclazide). I probably could order more but I don't in case I get them stopped. I probably drive long distances every other week. So it works out at 30 strips for the daily tests 2 for the long distance drives and the other 8 for my intensive testing
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If you take gliclizide and drive you have to test each time before you drive by law as gliclizide can cause hypo's. Also have you informed DVLA about your meds


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I test before evry meal so 4 times a day and then if im feeling off or unwell:p
 
Min 7 times day. Before and after meals, and before bed. If exercising, 2 times more, If I have a hypo, add a few more tests. So I reckon, average 9 times a day, so about 270 times a month. I'm T1 and keeping a very tight reign on BM. And very new to this malarky so still working out what effect different foods and exercise have on me. Not been in double figures for nearly a week now :-)
 
tomvonc said:
Min 7 times day. Before and after meals, and before bed. If exercising, 2 times more, If I have a hypo, add a few more tests. So I reckon, average 9 times a day, so about 270 times a month. I'm T1 and keeping a very tight reign on BM. And very new to this malarky so still working out what effect different foods and exercise have on me. Not been in double figures for nearly a week now :)
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Thanks Tomvonc. And keep up the good work.
 
AndBreathe said:
Thanks Tomvonc. And keep up the good work.
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Originally, The DSN put me on a fixed regime, and 4 tests a day. I got sick of being in the 20's and feeling ill all the time so I took matters into my own hands. Doubled my testing, and researched and put into practice carb counting. DSN was horrified that I had defied her, but so what. I f&*king feel human and fit now! (apart from the odd error which leads to the inevitable hypo)
 
I have to say, I found it astonishing when the nurse I saw immediately post-diagnosis (T2) stated that I shouldn't be testing, and if I tested, I wouldn't understand the results. How patronising is that? She knew nothing of me, my background, my education or personal support system.

Anyway, I just used that as a defiant motivation. I'm stubborn, and being told not to do something makes it the thing I want most of all.

Sadly, the nurse I saw then has now retired. Sadly because I would like her to be reviewing my improved numbers in the light of her patent disbelief that I would or could make a sea change in my condition. But, the reality is, I'm not making changes for her, but for myself and those in my life who matter.

[/rant over]
 
Some of reasons given for not testing are ridiculous. A specialist nurse (not my dn ) told me it would send me mad. I told her my T1 son seemed sane enough. One poster here got told they shouldn't test because of "sine waves" we never did get to the bottom of what that meant!

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