I haven’t found a better deal in Canada on strips. There might be one, but I haven’t found it yet.
The best ones you can get for super cheap are only $0.22 per strip. On Amazon, the Contour Next One, if you buy them in big batches (like 200 or more), they are cheap. And the Contour Next One is a quality meter!
I will tell you what I think is life-changing. Keep your current guy, but find a different Endo you like that is more reasonable, and have two Endo’s.
And you would only need to see him once a year. So maybe you would have to drive an hour or two once a year. That’s no big deal.
You can even call them and screen them a bit too. Just be up-front, say you don’t want to hassle over diabetic baby-talk, that you want to be treated like an adult and be able to try things like Metformin or Afrezza without a having to make a federal case out of it.
Or you can just see an Internist or GP and get scripts. You’d still see your Endo once a year or whatever you need to, but you can get scripts from a different doctor to try.
Once they have the confidence to try things a bit, I really encourage people to step out on their own if their Endo is not supportive.