I always use a new lancet. The ends of the lancet get slight more dull and bent with each use. Too much pain. I don’t reuse needles either.
tmana is correct. This method of measurement is very inaccurate.
I’m with you on this one. As a former software developer I am flummoxed by the fact I have use a different type of strip for each meter, a different cable and software. I just don’t fracking get it. These meters have been around from before personal computers became main stream and yet they are designed with a last century mind set.
Hopefully some of what I saw demoed at the iPhone 3.0 event will get the creative juices flowing.
What the meter companies’ tech support people have told me is that they have to have proprietary cables and datastreams to protect the information because these are medical devices. It sounds to me mostly like a bunch of doublespeak and a misinterpretation of HIPAA used to cover their desire to lock us and our doctors into staying with their brand of equipment.
It seems like those who can, already do sell it for cheaper…
…and those who don’t, don’t do it because they know people need to buy them anyways.
Typically the chemestry on the strip is affected by the open atmosphere,mostly by moisture. Most vials are coated with a chemical to remove moisture.
Especially when the PRICE of the test strips still costs about the same as when the technology was first developed. They are making huge profits off of these little test strips that we depend on so much, and although the machines have gotten a little smaller and easier to use, they have a market that just keeps increasing as the importance of BG testing is being realized for more and more PWD.
Seriously, if we’re talking about patent protection and things like that, why is there no generic insulin available? And why is a lifesaving medication so darn expensive? It’s criminal if you ask me. When I consider what is going to happen to me and my 2 kids with D once we lose the mega corp insurance once my husband’s COBRA runs out and we have to go with the much smaller (less than 2,000 employees) plan. I’m grateful we’ll have insurance, but man, we are going to hurt real bad financially unless I can find a job at a larger corp w/ decent coverage.
I wish meters came in properly insulated cases, fit for a piece of electronic equipment, so that they wouldn’t so easily give you errors for being too hot or cold. But alas, my new Nintendo DS case fixes that. lol
Most of the newer insulins are the product of biopharma. Biopharma requires much more expensive equipment and procedures than regular pharma. This presents a financial barrier to any wishing to make a generic. They would have to recoup the cost of the equipment making it not cost effective.
It’s not criminal. If the American population understood the cost just to bring a single drug to market you would understand. Every law-suit just adds to the cost. Plus the cost of clinical trials. Do you want a drug that has not been tested being used on your family? Plus the cost of development when most of the compounds fail. The the cost of a new plant and FDA approvals. By the time the drug makes it to market the drug company has about 7 years to make back the investment and make profit for shareholders before the generics show up. It’s a business not a non-profit. Without profit they go out of business.
The cost of manufacture is not the only cost. Factor in the cost of research and development, testing, and expensive and time consuming FDA approvals. How many people here actual understand the business of running a pharma company? From the comments I’d say none.
I guess I’m just a spoiled American with a very strong blue collar background. Maybe the fact that the pork-beef insulins were so reasonably priced and accessable to a wide range of people that I grew up spoiled, although my control absolutely STUNK on those old regiments, and maybe the lack of a decent profit margin staggnated D research. I just don’t know. When I hear about what the people that head up these big pharma companies make in a year, it hurts to realize this is the price of keeping the innovation going.
I don’t have the answer, never will, but I know my life depends on these medications, and w/o big mega corp coverage, I’m sunk financially. I understand they need to make a profit, I understand that it is a business. But it’s also lives. Maybe I view it differently because my children also have type 1, and when I look at the future prospects for them, I am very afraid. Mega company rewards the people that work for them handsomely, and they bring tremendous advances. I’m just concerned that they also help create a society where the have and the have not gap is ever widening, it’s not an even playing field, I’m well aware. I’m grateful I was born where I was, and I am aware how lucky I am to have what I have. I have a friend that suffers from a form of cancer that requires monthly treatments that cost over $7000 a month. That’s well more than she makes in a month. I worry because I see a day where people that make the decisions decide my life, or my children’s lives, are simply not worth the monetary cost. That’s a scary thought to have.
You, in a sense, are lucky. You developed D late. You were already established as a successful adult. I see my 20 y/o struggling, and there is little I can do to help as the costs of this disease to a blue collar family have long ago stripped any economic power to help from us. So do me a favor, I understand what you are saying, but honestly, I should be allowed to vent here. If you’re in the “squeeze” class (too much income to qualify for help, but barely making it after everything is paid out), it hurts, and I need a place to vent and NOT be spoken to in a condesending manner, as if I did not undersatnd how the big world works. I get it, just needed to vent a bit.and a 7 year recoup on investment really doesn;t sound that bad to a family that has collectively been paying for these advancements for a combination of 134 years. . .
I think this is why Banting and Best didn’t put strict patent restrictions on insulin… because they wanted it to be available to EVERYONE who needed insulin, and not to be kept lorded over with high costs over needy folks, like it’s happening now with the newer types. They understood people would suffer, and die. People fought with them over this idea… But this is why you can go anywhere and get regular insulin, still to this day. Dontcha wish everyone had that common decency, too? And it’s not like this put them or anyone in the poorhouse… I am more than sure they could develop generics, and be just fine. Lots of people don’t trust generics.
If I had to pay the name brand price for the 3 maintenance meds I take aside from insulin, and that’s with decent insurance right now, sheesh, I can’t think too hard about it. I get a little freaked every so often when there is a report abput a conterfeit drug being marketed to the big pharma’s in the US, but I had expenses outside of D care and medications.
Weird times we are living in, that is for sure.
I’m not making a moral argument about the current situation. Just pointing out that it’s purely economic. The question is
- Who gets to decide what a decent profit is? The government? The people buying the product? Market economics? Would you as a large shareholder invest in a company that had fixed growth potential, no way to grow it’s market and a cap on profits? I know that most investors want maximum profits and massive growth potential.
Lucky? How so? The harder I work, the luckier I seem to get.
If you want to learn more about the business of diabetes check out Scott Strumello’s excellent blog posts: http://sstrumello.blogspot.com/. Scott has Type 1 diabetes.
I think all of these are doable for existing strips/meters.
I tried reading his blog, It’s not helping. I get that to these large companies, we are just resource generators. I never asked to be part of this. I know you didn’t either.
I think we’re talking on 2 seperate planes.
Truce. I’ll drop it.
I used this one. You had to wash the blood off the strip…
I wish my Medtronic Ultra One Touch meter would light up when I hit a button. I hate turning the lights on in the middle of the night to test my blood sugar. Also, when I am in the car at night (not driving) going down the road and I need to test my BS during my travels. I hate asking or telling my husband that I need to turn the light on in the cab of the car to test my BS.
Imagine…You are half asleep…you grab your meter on your nightstand…you touch the center of the meter…bing…a light comes on …insert the strip…click the lanct…enough light to get your blood on the strip…count 1.2.3.4.5…then TADA…a perfect BS…I did not have to wake my husband up to test. I just place my meter back on the nightstand …night night… My pump lights up. Why can’t my meter light up? How convienent can that be?
Also parents of kids of Diabetes…this would be fabulos to test in the middle of the night and not wake your kid up with the overhead light.
Ohhh one more thing… I want a little beep to let me know that the strip is inserted correctly and ready for the test. That way I will not need to waste very expensive strips… I hope that the manufactures are reading this stuff and take us serious. Get to work and develop this for us please.