Hey does anybody remember this:
2 drops of urine
10 drops of water
1 tablet
Then wait for the magical bubbling to stop…
TADUM,I hope it was blue!!!
To heck with the 70’s, I was dx-ed in the UK and the NHS had us using this set-up in 1984!! I had to barter with the chemist to get blood test strips for a Glucometer back then. The NHS gave us metal and glass syringes, and the druggers got fresh disposables, till the BDA and others raised Hell over that.
In 1986, I started to get test strips for my Accu-Check Refloulux meter.
To this day, I hate that particular shade of orange …
Yes I remember the test tube, the orange color and stinky smell when it bubbled up. yuck.
I wasn’t diagnosed until 1978, but I do remember doing Clinitest.
Ya I guess now that I think about it longer…I did not start blood testing till the mid eighties!! Oh those were the glory days of diabetes management…in the very short term anyway!!
Ya me too!!
Yes ;-))
Used Clinitest myself in the early days (early 1980s in the UK). Mum (a T1 since 1971) and me used to have a metal eggcup each to collect our “sweet nectar” before carrying out the test. We had the colour chart sellotaped to the inside door of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom where we stored all the paraphenalia needed for Clinitesting. Those metal eggcups sure got encrusted over time; they turned into some kind of rock formation.
I also remember Mum’s glass syringes (I used plastic ones from the outset) and how they had to be steeped in boiled water after each injection and then put away in a plastic container with an alcohol solution. Swabs are another thing I remember using.
OH i HAD MOMENTARILY FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE SMELL…NOW I CAN’T GET IT OUT OF MY BRAIN!!! 
I started using ChemStrips around 1982 or 1983, and I got my first meter in 1984.
Ya I barely rmember it, but I cna still see my Mom sterilizing those glass syringes…
R u using CGM now a days?
Can a person still buy Clinitest tablets?
I’d love to use them to make a 21-test tube salute for World Diabetes Day on Nov. 14!
I dx’ed myself in 1973 with a Clinistix strip. My father had T2. I cannot explain why I snatched one of his Clinistix strips and used it. The strip turned dark blue. When my doctor told me that I had to inject insulin I fainted.
What a great idea, Kelly!
My insurance paid for 100 Clinistix strips a month. My doctor told me that I should check my fasting bg once in a while and he did not understand why I wanted more strips. My T1 neighbor died a couple of years later. He was in his 50s. I lived in a small town. I wonder whether we used the same doctor.
Yes. My Mum diagnosed me at home using Clinitest. She then took me to the GP’s and said straight out that I had diabetes. I guess she came straight out with it because when she was ill with diabetes it took the medical profession months to actually believe her when she said she was ill and then finally diagnose her back in 1971.
I was dx’d in spring of '74 but sent home with TesTape. Because this was a tiny hospital I am surprised to know that a lot of people were still using the test tube method, but smalltown Minnesota had progressed.
Yeah, we were always looking for no green. And then when there was green I could never tell the difference in shades.
Oh yeah do I remember…dxed July 5, 1959.
I was diagnosed in 1968… I used Clinitest for 4 years or so, but not very often; only if I had a cold and was feeling poorly. I used TesTape throughout the 70’s and early 80’s.
God Bless,
Brunetta