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Short lancets

Resurgam

Master
Messages
10,201
Location
Dorset, on the south coast of England
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
I bought a testing kit - the Tee2 - and have been using the greenish lancets which came with it, with the device set to 2.
I have now looked at the box of lancets which I bought at the same time, from the same source, and they are blue, and when placed in the stabber, I had to turn it up to 7 to draw blood.
The box shows the pin to be 0.31mm - the ones on the greenish lancets are about double that length.
I had assumed that the lancets were a set length - obviously not.
I decided to post this in the general section, just to reach more people - had I mixed the different lancets I could have found it rather a shock to get a greenish lancet and the device set at 7 after using the blue ones.
 
The blue CareSens lancets are 0.31 mm in diameter and the green lancets are 0.36 mm in diameter so the green ones make a bigger hole which might account for more blood. The blue ones measure at about 2 mm long, I don't have any green ones any more but I don't remember them being any different. I always have used the middle depth on the SD lancing device whichever lancet I used.
 
I was bored so I looked into this lancet question some more.....

As I thought the green and blue CareSens lancets are the same length but I have noticed the newer blue ones have a slightly different design, the needle is the same length but part of the needle is covered in plastic This is probably what you are seeing @Resurgam. However what determines the penetration is the distance from the tip of the needle to the square shoulder of the plastic as this shoulder hits a stop on the inside of the lancing device. If you have a basic lancing device like mine and you remove the screw cap and insert a used needle, pushing it into the cap you can see that only a short length of needle maybe 0.5mm protrudes even on the deepest setting, so the fact that part of the needle is covered doesn't make any difference.

The lancing device I got with my TEE2+ is called CareLance but I abandoned it and went back to my old SD one as the CareLance didn't always work.

 
I still use my Multiclix lancing device which I got with a Accu-Chek Performa with my Abbot Freestyle Lite, no chance of different lancets sizes with the six lancet cartridges it uses,

Same applies to my Fastclix lancing device.
 
No matter what meter I happen to be using I always use the FastClix lancing device as I find it the best one for me.
And as @Tipetoo says there are no different lancet sizes just the cartridge which is easy to dispose of as well.
 
I found that the depth settings on the Multiclix and Fastclix were about the same, I have mine set on 3.5. This depth gets through the scar tissue on my fingers with no extra force required.
 
At least the TEE2 lancets are only about £4 for 50. My agamatrix ones are £14.
 
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