If you don’t have a glucose meter and you have diabetes, you should definitely get one.
Christopher Thomas, from Diabetic Rockstar/Fight-It, a fellow community, can get you a free meter. Those interested in receiving a free meter simply send an e-mail to christopherthomas@diabeticrockstar.com with the headline “I Want A Meter”. He will send out an e-mail confirmation and ship it to you 2-3 weeks.
Thanks to Christopher for doing this. It is SO important for you to test and test often when you have diabetes, that this means a lot!
Free meters are easy to get. Free strips would actually help people!
Unless these meters use the most inexpensive strips, like the Wal-mart meters do they aren’t a good deal for people who have financial issues keeping them from getting good treatment!
I do agree with the strips-cost issue. That is something that folk are trying to work at from several angles; unfortunately, market leverage is somewhat fragmented due to varying insurance coverage levels (under my current plan, I don’t pay a cent for my strips – under my previous plans, it was cheaper to pay outright than to have the doctor write the scripts for them) and to the wide variety of meters on the market, each with its own proprietary strips.
On the other hand, I’ve been seeing fewer and fewer free meters – more usually they are “free with purchase of strips” or more often “reduced price with purchase of strips”.
I do know that getting strips from a specialty mail-order house is generally cheaper than going to the local pharmacy or the major onlines (drugstore.com, cvs.com, etc.). It looks like American Diabetes Wholesale is stocking the “generic” (little-known brand) items…
Simple Diagnostics will send their Clever Chek Auto Code meter free to US residents through July 31, 2008. This is a basic meter w/ 450 memories, a lot of different averaging capabilities, and cheap strips ($16.79 per 50 at American Diabetes Wholesale, compared to $30.85 for 50 Accu-Chek Aviva strips, or $28.78 for 50 Freestyle strips). The downside is there is no data cable capability to upload the results into any management program/database. The URL to get the free meter is http://www.simplediagnostics.com/documents/74.html
Nine weeks out and have not received the meter, even though I did get an auto-send confirmation e-mail. I tried calling their customer support line, and they had no incoming audio (could not hear me). It sounds like the phone rings, picks up, and then transfers to an offsite callcenter… but since ALL of the phone numbers are the same…
This particular Freestyle campaign has ended; however, Abbott is still making these available through the Freestyle Promise program (http://www.freestylepromise.com). This program also assists with the cost of strips.
i’m newly diagnosed and the meter prescribed by my doc is not covered by my insurance. I can actually get a meter for free??? The insurance did pay for the strips which are one touch ultra. Is there a catch to get a free one touch ultra meter?
Bayer was giving either a free Contour or Breeze 2. A few weeks ago, I ordered the Breeze 2 & got it fairly quickly (I actually like it a lot too). I think now, they are giving a free coupon but you need a prescription from your doctor to take to the pharmacist. My insurance is a joke, so I usually get the strips at a wholesale site online. The Breeze 2 disc were around $24 for 5 discs (=50 test strips).
