Why bother to use a finger pricker "the size of an insulin pen"?
Why not just use a bare lancet? - it will sit happily in your pot of sticks. (The ones I use have a replaceable plug for the point.)
And why bother to use an insulin pen. Why not simply use disposable syringes?
Doctors and nurses sometimes administer insulin to diabetic patients in hospitals. But they wouldn't normally use an insulin pen to do that. They're far too clunky and impractical.
Okay, it is at first a little bit tricky drawing out the insulin when it only comes in a pen-injector cartridge. (One has to simultaneously push gently, with one's finger tip, on the rubber bung at the bottom end of the cartridge.) But you soon get used to it. (Mercifully, because it's used a lot in hospitals, Actrapid will always be available in ordinary glass phials.)
Most of the time, I don't use a meter to test my blood sugar. Instead, I use visually read strips. (
http://www.betachek.com/uk/) They're cheaper, simpler, and far more practical and portable. For readings below around 8mmol/l, they're really quite accurate. For low readings, I find them to be very accurate.
I just thank God I was diagnosed with diabetes 30 years ago, rather than now. With all the ****** equipment, and all the stupid 'carb counting' (part and parcel of the unrealistic aim for 'normal eating'), I'm pretty sure that I would give up bothering to try to manage my condition. I'm certain that's just what many newly diagnosed people do - especially young people.
Meters are very useful, no doubt about it. It's 11.00pm, and now I use a meter. And my reading is 3.4. So I eat a little over half a slice of the Co-op's wholemeal bread. I also take a small amount of Insulatard (to stop my blood sugar rising overnight). And since there is no other insulin now active within me, I know I'll be safe until the morning: my blood sugar will be near normal (I expect 5 or 6mmol/l), and I shall begin all over again.