Yes yes yes. Thank you for remembering the name. It was still bugging me today at the mall.
What an absolutely great point to make. I have had db for 33 years and when I focus on the progress made, it is astounding.
I had one of the guillotine types and it was horrible. The first pen type I had wasn’t much better, though. No adjustments and it had a lot of force. I was diagnosed in 1987 so I know that the pen type of device had to be out already, and I’m not sure why I had the other one. I know a doctor that my mother knew was retiring and gave her boxes & boxes of lancets for me, so I probably got a few of them from him. Just last year I gave away several boxes of the lancets to someone who actually uses a new one for each test. I can’t remember the last time I changed mine.
I think I maybe change it like once every 3-4 months…I too have a great excess of lancets.
Changing a lancet every time??? Good Lord, I’ve never heard of such a thing. I typically keep a few in my kit - and use them until I’m pretty much poking my finger with a dull thumb tack. Fun.
I had one of those, too!!
i have to confess that when out at lunch last week, i went to check my blood sugar only to find that i forgot to put a lancet in (only because it was a new lancer. i haven’t change the lancet in my other meter since…i may have never changed the lancet). since i’m new to pumping, i was desperate enough to try the serrated steak knife to get blood. just so you know, it didn’t work. i’m not sure what that says about my skin…
OMG, serrated steak knife…one time at work I tried a paper clip, a box cutter and a corkscrew (from the office “party drawer”). Thought about the papercutter or maybe chewing the end of my finger. Then I found a safety pin in my desk and sterilzed it with perfume. Necessity is the mother of invention.
I was diagnosed in 1991 and just missed all this old stuff, I think. My first meter required a huge drop of blood that you had to be careful to fill the square on the strip with properly (without touching the strips because that somehow ruined them), and took I think 60 seconds to count down, and the lancing device just two lids, one with a “big hole” and one with a “small hole” to try to control the depth, had a “memory” of just 10 test results (not including date or time), but it was pretty small and is more civilized than this stuff! 
I remember both of those! Like you I do it by myself and ppl who have gotten those here latley justdon’t understand why I do that…It’s becaues of stuff like that!
I had both of these and worse…
Joe
I remember going to the nurse in elementary school, where I was using wipe-off strips (you’d compare with colors on the bottle) because my parents couldn’t afford a second meter for @ school. That was bad enough because it felt like I had to drain a quarter-teaspoon of blood from my tiny fingers just to get accurate results…
The other diabetic girl in the school had a lancing device like that first one, we’d test at the same time and I was horrified! It looked so scary!
I had the Lifescan pen that came with my original One Touch meter…you know, the huge dark grey thing with the door? Open the door, wait some long amount of seconds, close the door, wait more, voila! Results! Anyway, the original pen now seems to me like it was the same size as my pump infusion set inserter…wowie.
And I complain about my meter!!!
Those things were AWFUL.
Other bygone diabetes devices that were not all that:
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the insulin port. Kind of like an infusion set except that you had a metal needle embedded in you with a little plastic bit sticking out into which you could do your shots. Only benefit was not actually having to stick yourself everytime.
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the spring loaded auto-injectors that you had to slam down into your flesh.
I actually miss chemstrips though… they’re nice to carry with you when you’re traveling somewhere where meters and strips are hard to come by and you don’t really want to carry a whole back up system.
I went into a pharmacy and tried to get them a few months ago and the pharmacist had no idea what I was talking about.
What about those things that used air to put the insulin through the skin - you know, the ones that left those mesh outlined circles on the skin?
It was called a “jet injector” - I remember seeing it advertised in Forecast and also June Bierman and Barbara Toohey talking about it in their books. It was for those with extreme needle sensitivity, and, there was some thought that the insulin was more uniformly absorbed.
I think it was very expensive and sort of big to lug around
Weren’t there some lancet devices in that era that automatically ejected the lancet? I think I remember one and I really didn’t like it. I’m one of those who change lancets about twice annually whether I need to or not.
I remember reading about that jet injector too.
oh my gosh thats horrible!!! so glad they have come up with better lancing devices.
Ouch! And I thought I’d witnessed a lot of progress in my 14 years!
When I was diagnosed in 1993 I got the One Touch II - the lancet device was difficult to control but not too barbaric. The meter cost $119, and took about 45 seconds and a massive drop of blood. I remember looking at the meter and thinking “it looks a lot like a Nintendo Game Boy… only not as fun”.