I am so frustrated with my latest vial of test strips. At first I thought it was just me, as I thought I didn’t have enough blood to get the strip to work. After the first couple of times though, I realized it wasn’t me, it was the whole vial. Every time I go to put my blood on the strip, it doesn’t get “sucked” in (I’m sure there’s some scientific term for it). I try every angle, and then finally it sometimes works, and sometimes it only goes halfway on; another wasted strip. I am using the One Touch Ultras, which I’ve used for years. Anyone else ever have this problem, and if so, what did you do about it?
hey, the same thing happened to me with my daughter, here i thought it was me! i had some where the strip would “break” , the end that goes into the meter…same brand, this just happened with my last batch #20
I encourage you to call Lifescan, but just make sure you have plenty of time to wait on hold. I just got off the phone with them and they are sending me out a new vial, and want me to return the old one. After I explained the trouble, the gentleman would ask the strangest questions. “How did you apply the blood?” Me: “The same way I’ve been doing it for the last 15 years!” “What did you do differently after this happened?” Me: “What do you mean?” “Did you need medial attention, did you have a low blood sugar, etc.?” Me: “No, I just kept trying until I got a strip to work.” Duh! Oh well, at least they are sending me a new vial. I know they’ve had recalls before, so I’m wondering if others are having trouble.
I had a similar problem with the One Touch strips too. I returned them to the pharmacy and they gave me a new box. They wanted to make sure that I had kept all of the test strips though… even the ones I had used (I thought that was weird, but anyways).
Ack!!! I thought it was just me not holding my finger to the correct angle! GRRR… I dont keep the old teststrip after use either. Maybe I should ask my doc for a different namebrand meter?ugh. We cannot afford wasted teststrips. My current batch is #9. This has happened to a couple of different vials already.
Definitely call the customer service people, and tell them about the defective strips. They record the call so it might be a good idea to also mention the impact of the failure on your health.
Mine was code 9 too, but what they look at is the lot #. Mine was 2772904. I just opened another vial, same box, same lot, same problem! Definitely give them a call, and let us know if it is the same lot.
my code was #9 and lot # 2775165… sigh. cruddy mess. I’ve already wasted at least 5 strips from this vial alone… not including the ones wasted in previous vials. I thought it was just me because I recently starting using this meter. 
Hey Guys! It’s Saturday and they are open:) I got thru really fast today. They want me to send the last 8 test strips back in the vial so they can see if anything is up with them. They are sending me a new test vial and control solution too. I’m glad you started this post! I would have kept on thinking that it was me testing wrong.
MeadowLark
Last year they had a recall on some of their strips. Maybe you got a bad batch. I remember them saying there was some type of notch cut out of the container or something. It might be worth looking it up on their website.