I feel bad about your post. The text strips are very expensive. Luckily for people in Ireland, once diagnosed with diabetes we are provided with a "long term illness book". Our GP writes in everything we need in relation to diabetes, - glucose monitor, test strips, pills, etc. Once written into the book we can go to any chemist and get these item free of charge. I don't know how I would be able to cope otherwise - I think 50 test strips here is about 40 - 50 Euro. I would have to re-mortgage the house.