We somehow always wind up losing the meters we do have, but ideally we’d like to have something like 6 or 7 of the same type: One for Samson’s room, one for our bedroom, one for the kitchen, one for the living room, one for his case that travels with him, and one for each of us to carry in our bags/purses.
Yet for whatever reason we are always moving them from room to room, misplacing them, etc.
How many do you guys feel is adequate? And do you have a system for making sure they’re all in the right place?
My system, for what it’s worth: I have several brands of meters, but only one of each. The current meter goes with pens and swabs in my carry case. I keep it in two spots in the house: in the bedroom through the day, and on the bathroom counter in the night. At work, it’s in the bag in my closet.
Now, as I look at this, it’s a bit extreme. I should have one backup meter on hand, in case of loss or breakage.
On the other hand, it’s sort of like a wallet or car keys - If you put it in one spot, it should be there. (“A place for everything, everything in its place”)
I have 2 meters that I use regularly, and one backup (still in box).
I use a small tote bag with meter, glucose, etc, that goes wherever I go. And one meter that stays in kitchen at all times, in case I’ve left the tote bag in another room. If I’m in the kitchen, I’m most likely getting food!!
When my doctor downloads meter data, I always note that I have more than one.
This won’t surprise anyone, but I have… probably… 9? 8 of them are in a pile in my cabinet, and one is in my “carry on”, which is my new small bag that I carry everywhere (even inside the house) after reading the “emergency” thread. Because I had to have the thought of what would I do if my kids locked me into something like the pantry.
I need to get organized. I bought all the meters to keep everywhere so I would never be without, but that’s not what has happened. If I ever get locked into that particular cabinet, however, I’m well provisioned.
We are more or less like @Nickyghaleb!!! Because we use the Omnipod, we use Freestyle meters, of which we have 6 stockpiled, because they are hard to get. We also have a few Freestyle Lite (we like them better than the Freestyle Freedom Lite because they have a light on the strip) even though the manufacturer says it needs to use a different strip (but several members of this forum say that it does not matter).
We also have several contour meters as backup options in case we run out of Freestyle strips. We keep 600 Contour strips on hand. We keep them all in our spares boxes.
How we keep our Freestyle meters: my son keeps his Omnipod PDM with him at all times. Everywhere we go more than an hour away from the house we carry a spare manual Freestyle meter. In the US, we keep a manual Freestyle meter at school, and one in the car. As we are traveling around Europe right now, we also have with us one more spare Freestyle meter (that is two altogether). Finally, we also have a spare Omnipod PDM, which, of course, carries a meter. All of the other Freestyle meters we keep in our spares boxes.
I’m impressed that you have this many stockpiled! My endo’s stubborn refusal to write my rx for more than 4 a day is making it hard to build up a stash. I use the Dexcom G6 so he doesn’t see why I should need more strips… but I sometimes go through so many in the first couple days of a wacky sensor, that I rarely have more than one container of them unopened. Guess I need to ask about this next time I’m in!
To answer the real question, I have one meter plus a random spare of a different brand hiding in the closet, just in case. My everyday-use-meter is always in my zipper pouch that goes in my purse with me most everywhere, and hangs out in the kitchen when I’m home.
Dexcom is generally super accurate for me, so on a normal (non first day of a sensor) day, I may get by without testing at all, if I’m lucky, so I’ve never worried about extra meters, I guess.
OK, as I think about it, I do carry a backup meter with me to work and home - a ReliOn Micro (the soon to be collectors item kind) in my bag. This is handy too, since if I want to go in a restaurant or similar situation, the case fits an insulin pen.
I have my Omnipod PDM and a backup Freestyle lite (just in case something happens to my PDM). I only use the PDM though - it’s either in the kitchen (during the day), in my purse when I am out, or by my bedside at night. I like having all my BGs on one meter so that it’s easier to upload to Diasend/Tidepool etc…
I buy them cash on Amazon Our prescriptions are for Freedom strips. The Contour strips cost roughly $21/100, so we are talking about $125 for the Contour strips stock.
But:
I am shocked by this. We have a prescription for 12 strips/day (Freedom), and we use them all. I am flabbergasted that your endo would feel it is appropriate to give you a measly 4/day, we would certainly switch endos over that. Our Dexcom is reasonably accurate, but there are moments when a CGM does not work well (for instance when you eat to stave off a bad low) so you need to use a lot of strips there. We can use 15 strips in a bad 4-hour stretch after a high peak, in the landing phase.
“Hi Dr. Endo. I get frequent errors and wasted strips with my meter. Sometimes I don’t put enough blood on it, and it errors out. If my hands are cold, I sometimes don’t get enough blood. Sometimes my hands get sweaty - particularly when my BG is low - and the sweat messes up the reading on the meter. Sometimes my hands are shaky if I am low, and I mess up the test. I have spilled a vial of strips on the floor of the public restroom at the subway station, and there was no way I was going to pick those up! During the warmup period of my Dexcom, I have no way of knowing my BG. Um…should I keep going?”
If I press the issue I bet they’d write it for more. I’m notoriously bad at pushing back
I’ll ask when I go in next month!
Frankly, this is one of the odd negative aspects of having an actual T1D endo… he seems to have a tendency to think what works for him is what should work for others. I have a hunch he relies almost exclusively on Dexcom and uses very few strips himself.
We started by by using lots of different meters in many places, but we were losing track of them all the time. So now we use only one main one. So we only need to check one place to make sure all is in order. The others (school, car) pretty much never get touched, and intrinsincally tend to go back to where they belong on their own (although I can imagine that they could disappear if they were used a lot).
Going from many to just one in frequent use was a change of philosophy. It compels us to be really good at keeping track of it, and, in a weird way, it works much better for us.
Being on the G6 and now omnipod, I rarely test. I have:
Contour Next at home in my bathroom from my 630G pump
Another one at work I keep in my locked cabinet
A One Drop I keep in my car
In my stash closet I have an old One Touch and One Touch Verio that I don’t use.
So now that I’m on omnipod, I guess I need another set of strips? What’s the best one to use and best bang for the buck off insurance? Insurance only pays for One Touch.
Yeah, I did that when I went on the Bayer Contour Next. They got it approved as an override, but they never said it would be FREE like my other diabetes supplies! The copay was more than I could pay cash on amazon for.
I’m chuckling about this to myself. I remember back about thirty or forty years ago when meters were a novelty and I felt lucky to have just one! Not that it was real accurate, but it gave me a number.
Our prescriptions are for Freedom strips. The Contour strips cost roughly $21/100, so we are talking about $125 for the Contour strips stock.
