I Wish Blood Glucose Meter Companies

41

wow… or The Strip-a-Lot Program? … Top Stripper Benefits?

42

Good one :slight_smile:

I promise not to strip in 20 C.below weather …for that matter: I promise not to strip .

43

I Wish Blood Glucose Meter Companies… had the technology to tell you your number AND your trend (example: +25mg/dL per hour) ALL in 1 test. Who knows if that will ever be possible, but it’s worth wishing for!

44

Would make and sell the meters that existed 10 years ago. they took 60 seconds for a measurement and they were acurate. No bells and whistles.

45

Suggestions for Blood Glucose Meter manufacturers

WiFi enabled so that you can wirelessly download your history to your computer?

make the thing multifunctional by adding a 120 GB hard drive and making it into a personal mp3/video player like the Zune or Ipod (maybe not so good, but it would limit the number of things to carry)

how about developing test strips using microneedle technology the will eliminate the need for lancets altogether.

Develop meters that will give an accuracy of +/- 2% of lab results.

Test stips that cost about 2 cents a piece.

A meter that will chirp or otherwise alarm to tell you when to test. Such as two hours after a meal

a meter that allow you to log things like cals/fats/carbs consumed to allow for more closely following the diet portion of control.

A meter that directly stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain, so that you wont want to stop testing

46

Knowing the cynics they would prob send us a coupon to cold stone.

47

I wish Blood Glucose Meter will get more involved on third world countries, were it is extremely difficult and expensive to get the meter, even harder the strips. Some mayor hospital in Venezuela still poke fingers with recycled needles to their patients.

If that is in the hospital setting, I can only imagine how hard is for low income patients to afford the supplies they need to take good control.

It seems that advertising budget is a lot smaller on those countries… and it is so hard for people to even have an idea of waht they need… a free meter, is a dream there, here in the US, many people have more that one (my husband included) we get them for free easily (because the strips will pay off the apparatus on the long term)

There is another story…

My worry is that meanwhile the number of people that goes around without knowing how high or low they are, of even without being diagnosed. I know this is a complicated issue, probably beyond this question, but I just feel that technology wise we are kind of OK, to my eyes accessibility is a mayor issue.

48

I have been reading a lot about pumps thinking about switching to one but, I feel that all the pumps lead you toward one meter or another. Why cant meter companies all work wireless with the pumps. Oh wait then there would be freedom to choose someone else… Silly me!!!

49

I wish that one by one the meter companies would either GET COMPETITIVE IN THEIR PRICING / TESTING ACCURACY or GO OUT OF BUSINESS …the 2 previous turn-of-events being the result of ALL us folks who are ‘PANCREATICALLY CHALLENGED’ pooling our resources and launching our VERY OWN meter / strips company …hey, are we not constantly being told that diabetes is at epidemic proportions ? -Well, everybody who wants to join ‘our club’ can pay a type of ‘dues’ -( current ‘club members’ too ! ) and from the millions and millions of folks who are P.C. ( see above ) we should quite easily be able to gather enough dough to get this enterprise up and running …our ‘club’ will make a number of different meter models for those of us with a variety of needs -ALL based around a ‘LAB ACCURACY’ strip / result and everyone who is in the ‘club’ gets their supplies for low-down ‘member’ prices …who knows, might even attract a few folks who are NOT P.C.., but who just cannot turn down a bargain and want to be ‘members’ anyway ! Tell me, in all seriousness, what is so farfetched about the above scenario ?

50

I wish glucose meter companies would make a lancet device that had the tips nested and spat out a new one when you needed it, kinda like those nested tip " mechanical "pencils. Especially in the winter when my fingers are all dry and splitting, handling those lancets and their covers is really aggravating.

What I REALLY want is for my Palm Treo to also have a glucose meter device in it. I has a PDA, a phone, an alarm clock, a camera, a MP3 player, a calculator, video games, email, Internet and GPS and is blue tooth and WIFI enabled. It is my external back up brain!!!

Why doesn’t it have a glucose meter, too?

There have gotta be millions of diabetic who use i-phones. blackberrys or treos, many of these millions would flock to the first of them to integrate an accurate glucose meter into the package! with a case that holds a little vial of strips and a tiny pen lancet device? Hey Apple and Palm, are you listening?

Marie

51

I wish Blood Glucose Meter Companies would quit making deals with medicaid and other insurance companies that leave some people having to change meters because their insurance won’t cover the supplies.

52

I wish for…

  1. a backlit screen and an LED to light up the spot where the strip goes in. This way, I don’t need to turn the lights on to test in the middle of the night, I know how much blood I’ve got, and I don’t put strips in backwards and upside down.

  2. self-coding strips. put a barcode or something on the strip that calibrates the meter. When I run low on strips, I take the few remaining strips in the vial and combine them with the next one, so I only need to carry one vial with me. But I can only do that when the codes are the same.

  3. (for my OneTouch UltraMini) a full dot-matrix display rather than the 7-segment number display. Since I often hold the meter in my right hand and bleed from my left, the meter is upside down. Upside down, a reading of 95 looks like a 56 … and a 56 looks like a 95. Both can be really dangerous when misread.

  4. shrink the size of the “kit”, not just the meter. A tiny meter is pointless if I still need to carry a roll-of-coins lancer device and a film-cannister test strip vial.

And while you’re working on the kit…

  1. give me a (somewhat sanitary) place to deposit used test strips

But #1 is, by far, the highest on my list.

As a related, slighly selfish aside, I’m an electrical engineer looking for a line of work that I can be passionate about. If an actual meter manufacturer (or aspiring manufacturer) needs design help, please contact me!

53

As I age arthritic loss of dexterity and the skin on my fingers no longer has any ‘grip’. The slipping out of a test strip from the container is frustrating at best. A strip dispenser would be a welcome improvement!

54

I like the idea someone had about helping third world countries. The meter companies should donate a portion of all sales to provide meters and strips to those who cannot afford them. I know they make a killing of off the supplies we buy. I paid $45 for 10 strips to test blood ketones with presionxtra meter and the next day i went to a diabetes expo and a rep there gave me 2 boxes for free. It almost killed me that she gave away something that I just paid $45 dollars I don’t think they cost very much to make.

55

I wish my meter could interface with my Mac.
All the software I’ve ever seen was for PCs!
Yeah, and what about those meter bags/packs?
My meter is tiny, why do I have to have a thing three times its size to crry it around in?
Whine whine whine.
In the meantime, I too appreciate how far technology has brought us that these are the things I must whine about!

56

I totally agree with you Andreina. Here in Bolivia, I am one of the few diabetics I know who actually tests at home. Most go in once a week to the diabetes center, where, to be fair, they are only nominally charged more than the price of the strip. However, as we all know, it is virtually impossible to achieve good control when you have no idea what your numbers are! So accessibility and price are two huge issues.

57

my wish list!

  1. universal test strips. I have so many meters that I have been given since 2006 that its confusing when getting strips. It would be nice to go to the drug store and say you need test strips and not have to remember which meter you are using!

  2. recyclable test strips please. I HATE wasting waste. I break down my boxes and put them in the recycling bin and the little bottles too. But test strips I hate wasting especially when the machine gives me an error message.

  3. health insurance companies oh maybe COVER more meter companies machine. I have to use the contour one because Masshealth (still pending by the insurance company) doesn’t cover any of the others and I love the freestyle one better. So I’m stuck using the contour.

  4. How about packaging the meters in a smaller box. Do you really need to put all that crap in a HUGE box??? Seriously

  5. bring the cost down man. I can’t afford to spend 45 dollars in co-pay let alone figure out which brand is cheaper

  6. how about making your meters our of recycling products. So the meter can be environmentally friendly?

I can’t think of anything else really.

59

I wish you can figure out a way to sell test strips for cheaper.

60

i wish they would put real reasons why sugars are what they are “Site failure” “forgot to check sooner” “They lied and gave me real coke” and Please put a lite in meters that go along with the pump. In the middle of the night it is nice to not wake up the room with turning on the light and seeing the strips.