Last month I used 375 but over the last 3 months I have used 1200 or 400 per month on average. I am still learning carb counting and not yet super sure about what I am doing. My insurance company limits to 204 per month unless you have prior authorization which I do have for 300 strips a month, but the CDE at the clinic is trying to get it increased to 12 per day or 1080 in 90 days, if she can then they'll send 1100 because they come in boxes of 50. I would much rather pay $ 60 for 1100 strips than $ 60.00 for 900 strips, or $ 60 for 750 strips which is what the idiot endo wrote the last rx for.
I also feel like a compulsive tested I test at least 12 times everyday , if on holiday , exercising or going out it can be much more than that. My dr said its a waste cause not that much can happen in an hour but for me its psychological and i feel panicky if I want to test and don't.
i know, i dont use that many but if i didnt have to think about covering the cost of the extras id feel much more relaxed...
I don't think that it's compulsive at all. If you want to know what your BG is, test. I think I may have posted this somewhere else in the thread but I think it's useful to repeat:
1) wake up, test bg
2) before eating test BG
3) before driving to work test bg
4) 2 hours after eating test bg
5) lunch test BG
6) 2 hours post lunch test bg
7) drive home test BG
8) get home, run 3 miles...oh wait, don't forget to test your bg!
9) post-exercise maybe, maybe not, maybe eat dinner and, you guessed it, test BG
10) 2 hours post BG, test BG ****AGAIN****
12) stay up late? Maybe squeeze in another one, what if you have errands to run, what if you want to exercise more (when it's nicer out, I'll run 6-7 miles during the week, more on the weekends...a lot of times, I'll run a long run on Saturday and then a 20ish mile bike ride for fun, speed and recovery on Sunday...there's several extra strips in there...).
I can switch my day around, run in the AM, etc. but the number of strips is a minimum and, if anything gets out of what, I test again to see which way it's moving. And I have a CGM. It's very useful but not perfect and if I'm at 110 but going down, I want to make sure how fast I'm going down before I had out to run for an hour or whatever. I would fire any doctor that implied it's a waste pretty quickly I think. I "peaked" at 17x/ day right before I tested for my black belt in Tae Kwon Do, in 2009 as I was working out (running/ lifting) for an hour at lunch and then 5-6 nights/ week, 2 hours twice and a 1.5 hour "mastery class" during which I'd usually sweat off about 5 lbs as we were working hard. Which should all be ok. I had a pump then but not a CGM so I just kept testing. I was, to some degree obsessed but I don't think that it's misplaced at all and I think that it's pretty evil for a doctor to be all "well, it doesn't really matter..." when we are the ones living with it.
acidrock23 makes excellent points.
If no real time oddities and everything is ALWAYS moving up and down slowly; yes one has opportunities to reduce strip usage.
If any real time issues - liver dumps, bg dropping too fast - ones only choice is to test - no option.
I have been at this crap 30 years. At beginning my numbers were all over map and made no sense. I made mistake not testing enough and frequently to catch issues.
After a stroke and over 30 strips a day and Doctor's help reviewing data - yes , finally caught the real time liver issues and finally cracked the mess.
today I use 10 strips and a few more occasionaly watching the fireworks.
I also use cgms. Yes I am T2. Guessing and assuming are dangerous to your health. One must test. Advice is spot on; if you want to know your BG - Test.
To me too many Doctors are working on mostly working folks and little experience on Dog Cases.
Gut intestine can rarely push up BG fast. But on liver; man, that organ can really power drive the blood glucose and way faster than a cgms can track.
My liver easily in a dump senario shoots way ahead of cgms and only the fingerprick caveman machine cycling strips fast can track my BG up to 511 and watch fall back to 278/311. CGMS misses fast peak.
Unfortunately the knowledge on diabetes really seems to be dragging around in the dark ages with a bunch of perceived dogma and few test tools to really track the complex human chemical plant with its multi-organ - multi hormone operation.
I come from electronics side where complex sophisticated test gear is required to track fast moving micro-processor systems at nano second speeds with multi-protocall wide bit buses et all.
With a repeatable detailed targeted picture; it is far easier for all to reach agreement on problem and rational fix.
Guess and by golley with the Wand of Merlin don't cut it and thats why we are stalled on so many theories, arguments and lack of agreement to resolve this mess. Everybody has small part of picture and attempting to extrapolate problem but in fact we end up all over the map.
That said, many Doctors and folks truly are dedicated and working hard on this problem pushing for answers and cures every day.
From where I sit I was remiss not pushing to resolve and get better answers 30 years ago and paid for it with stroke. If you do not get an answer that helps your specific problems and issues; one may need to keep searching for data, answers and Doctors who have the knowledge and experience to assist on your speciific situation. It is absolutely critical you keep searching, working and trying for specific help and not give up.
One cannot resolve this monster without extensive testing and valid data that facilitate resolving the issues.
300 times a month. When I was pregnant I would test between 12 and 25 times a day! lol. I was crazy about being in PERFECT control and I was : ). Had a perfect baby girl in March 2011 with NO complications at all! : )
I test 150 to 200 times a month. Have lost the ability to sense a low until I get in the 50's (sometimes lower) - so I test whenever I feel "different". I also use alternate site testing. If i used my fingers _ I wouldn't test at all.
I know I am covered for about 100 strips & lancets a month. Now, I just ran out of my Strips today and I still have tons of lancets. Does that happen to anyone else too? You end up with more lancets then strips leftover?
I would venture to guess that about 90-95% of the D's here have a drawerful of lancets but not a drawerful of strips. The lancing device I am using came with my meter and I am still using the 10 free lancets that came with it more than 5 months ago. There are 5 left.
Someone posted a discussion about do you change your lancet for every blood test and the resounding answer was no.
i go thru about 300 strips a month. if i could afford to, though, i would probably go thru more. i average about 10 X per day. my doctor doesnt encourage this many testing times, but i bounce all over the place and want to know what my body needs; fruit, candy, soda or insulin.
also, i rarely change my lancets. i just 4get until i cant get any blood out.then i search for a new one.
I test 300 per month. I also have good insurance (it's good to be a Teamster)
Insurance says that's too much and Endo's imply that 300 is excessive. And maybe if I was perfect and lived in a mechanical world where nothing fluctuated or changed I would need less strips but the menotony of an unchanging world would likely drive me insane. I am using my Dexcom again so I am able to put aside a few test strips here and there, of course we cant tell any professionals about that or they would end that. I don't buy into the end of world prediction stuff but if something huge happened how long could you survive on the supplies you have now, 30, 60 90 days?
About 250-300 ish...depends how wrecked my fingers are though and what I'm doing or if I feel a bit off. If I feel slightly off than out comes a test.
I use about 3-4 per day so it makes over 100 a month. I try to change lancets as often as possible but the true is i do it every 2 days or so
My insurance won't cover test strips, and I can only afford one box per month; therefore I test no more than 3-4 times per day, sometimes less. If I could afford to test more, I would.
I could estimate, but I thought you'd find this funnier. I do a diabetes support group at the gym I work out at. It is an annual thing with all sorts of handouts and my endo comes to lend a hand. Anyway, I decided to have a contest: I filled a large peanut butter jar with used strips. If the attendees could guess how much money was in there (based on $1.00/strip) they got 4 passes to a restaurant. Of couse that meant I had to count them once the jat was full. I'm glad I started saving the strips early. Anyway the total was $7,602.00 worth. Thank goodness I haVE GOOD INSURANCE COVERAGE.
Iād be interested to see what correlation, if any, exists across a large number of members here between how much they test and how low their a1c is. I test 6 times a day on good days, often more
I test between 10-atx a day. My A1C is 5.2 - 5.4
Type 1 30+ years
My prescription is for 400/month even with the CGM. After I got my CGM a year ago I dropped it down to 200/month, but since starting on the pump (after a 6 year hiatus) I asked to go back to 400 so we could have a bit more accuracy for setting basals.
How are you Robin?
I usually run 250 to 350 a month. I usually tell my doc I test 10 times a day and I am close give or take a bit each month.