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Which meter should I buy?

L

Libbaloo

Well-Known Member
Messages
87
As I am new to this, can anyone give advice on what sort of meter to buy... any better than others? I have just tried out an accu check which arrived in the post from Amazon this morning while I was making breakfast. I see that the pot only contains 10 strips. This could become very expensive! I have already used 5 as I was getting used to the gadget!

I only managed to prick a little bit of blood but the yellow strip sucked it up and I got a post breakfast reading of 5.9. (I have had scrambled egg and bacon, some raspberries and crème fraiche and a few nibbles from my nut/ seed jar. I know its only about 10 minutes following breakfast but I couldn't wait two hours and didn't do a pre food test. I guess I could get through quite a few test strips at this rate and will need to budget.

Any tips? When should I have another go?

Is there a brand of meter with cheaper strips?
 

I have always found Boots very helpful and I'm sure if you check with the pharmacy counter a member of staff could price up various BG strips for you so you could find out which are the cheapest. Also check with them if you have to pay the VAT or not. I know that type 1 diabetics don't have to pay Vat but am not sure about Type 2's. Once you have found out which strips are cheapest contact the company to see if you can get a free meter so that you can try it out to make sure you like it before buying a pot of 50 strips. I am assuming that you are type 2 as type 1's get free strips for their meters. Do you have a DSN? Sometimes they get free strips for some meters and might possibly be able to help you out at the beginning when you are getting yourself sorted out.
 
Avoid Amazon; £7.99 for 50 strips with free posting only when you spend >£20.
 
If you are paying for your own strips then get the Codedfree, as the strips are very much cheaper than other brands.

There's not point in being impatient and testing immediately after eating - the only way to get value for money and meaningful results is to test immediately before and two hours after meals to see how big a spike your food is causing. Aim for food that causes spikes of less than two points, but your breakfast ought to be fine.

Robbity
 
Good start, although a bit back to front if you ordered a meter and are now asking which to buy. You could get a Codefree and keep the Accu check for retesting if you think a reading is wrong. This can happen through contaminated strips and fingers, so always wash & dry hands.
There's no short-cut to testing properly so do take the advice offered above. If you're a busy person you can test one meal a day if you like, breakfast Mon, lunch Tues, dinner Wed etc, plus every night last thing and next morning first thing, but obviously that will take nearly three times as long to build up a picture of your blood sugar behaviour.
The breakfast you had sounds fine and if you'd tested before and 2 hours after I'm sure you would have had an encouraging result. Show us what you can do!
 
The Accu-Chek annoys me as it seems to give the old E-4 message far too easily, and you have wasted a strip.

I got one of the free Bayer Contour Next meters, and it allows you to "try again" if you don't get enough blood onto the strip first time (in these cases it helps if you are ambidextrous and can hold the meter in one hand, and prick your finger with the other, whilst holding something ele with your foot )
 
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