I know we’ve decided that insulin is *probably fine past the expiration (as is glucagon). But what about test strips? Just realized a big chunk of our test strips are expired. We have ordered new ones but I’m wondering whether this compromises their accuracy in the meantime – do we have to toss all of em?
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I can’t get my hands on the specific link at the moment, but I do remember reading a study from not too long ago that showed that many brands of test strips give readings well within the required accuracy range for 4 or more years past the expiration date.
As for myself, personally, I’ve used strips up to one year past their expiration date with no detectable discrepancies or problems. That’s not due to any arbitrary cutoff decision, it’s just that I’ve never had any around that were older than that.
For folks that are stuck paying out of pocket for these sorts of supplies, using affordable expired strips is certainly a much better option than not using any strips at all, IMHO.
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Not the study I mentioned above, but a quick search gave up this one right away.
Disclaimer: There seem to be two solid theories on expired strips, which are quite obviously tied to inherent interests in only selling new strips vs. promoting the use of affordably priced expired strips. Ultimately, everyone has to decide for themselves what course of action is in their own best health interests…
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Easy personal test… when testing with a new strip, do a test with the expired strip at the same time. Then see for yourself if results match.
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As I was organizing our test strips I found that I had some really old ones that were in the back of the stack and after ordering everything, I started using the expired ones (Freestyle strips) and have had zero issues with them. I’m talking 1 year expired.
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@TiaG. I have used many many expired strips I purchased from. Ebay with almost no issues.
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In that study, if they are comparing it to control solution, they are not setting the bar very high. To me control solution has always seemed worthless. I’ve seen some control solutions that have a 50 point range!
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It seems to depend on brand.
I frequently use expired Contour Next strips (up to one year old) with no problem. I’ve checked them against non-expired strips and they are just as accurate.
But expired Freestyle Precision strips (also about one year old) are useless. I ended up tossing them because they just weren’t accurate enough. (I mean, they would be right in the sense that you’d get a high reading if high and a low reading if low…but beyond that, they were a random number generator.)
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Interesting. You’re using Freestyle Precision strips, right?
I found those useless. Maybe it’s related to storage conditions. But I ended up tossing them.
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Not Precision. Just plain old Freestyle. Not Lites, either…we’ve had to correct the CVS on numerous occasions. Just plain old Freestyle.
Oh wait, I’m thinking of the Libre, which uses the Precision strips.
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Yeah, I think they’re the Precision Neo strips.
They’re just called “Precision” now, at least in Canada, because they work with both the Xtra and the Neo meters.
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I have used expired freestyle lite strips (as that was my back up meter until I ran out, my fiance got me my freestyle freedom lite meter as a present one time after I mentioned it being more accurate than my onetouch, so I try to use it if possible and I get strips for it, rare but sometimes I get lucky on it lol) and they read the same or nearly the same as my fresh bayer contour next strips and they were at least a few months expired, if not close to a year. So I’d be ok with that .