Meters and testing strips from other countries

Diabetes Technology Glucose Monitoring
1

I’m hoping to get some input about test strips now that I am living far away from the United States.

My insurance and hospital loans meters to diabetic patients, and one of those meters just happens to be a One Touch. I didn’t select the One Touch particularly because it was the largest meter they had out of a choice of two, but I have the option of switching meters on my next visit.

The One Touch meters are in Japanese and seem to use the exact same test strips (although the bottle is written in Japanese). I was considering having my parents send me a One Touch Mini from home and using that meter with the Japanese test strips.

Does anyone have an experience with using a meter of the same brand with test strips from another country? Is this going to work?

2

The measure is probably going to be different than your current so that might be a challenge. Most places measure mmol/l and our meters measure mg/dl. So you will need to get used to that. Or keep yours and get the strips from ‘home’. Also, some meters allow to change the measure, some don’t so check that before you decide.

3

I guess I’m thinking more in terms of technology issues here- for example, region codes (not sure of these sorts of things exist on test strips). I’m hoping that the test strips I get (and buy) in Japan work with an American testing meter.

As far as using mg/dl, Japan and the US use the same system.