I’m pretty sure my high 2hr post-dinner BG is because I keep forgetting to count rice and beans as carbs. Oy. Being Tex-mex and trying to keep strict numbers…
The hateful meter itself, representative of everything I don't want... like diabetes... Somehow, I'll manage.
This post meal number was the last one I’ll take with my Accu-chek Aviva meter. No more strips left for me. My insurance from my old part-time job used to cover the Aviva, it’s test strips and even the drum-style lancets at a reasonable rate. This different insurance plan with my current full-time employer does not cover the Aviva line and apparently doesn’t cover lancets at all, so unfortunately I find myself transitioning to the Bayer Breeze 2 because that’s the only other monitor that my MFM will work with. It’s huge, ugly and clunky and I’m not at all impressed with the “cartridge” for test strips. With all the bulk, why not engineer a way for it take the strips back in for storage/disposal like my lancet drums can? This cartridge system offers me no more discretion or convenience than keeping the strips in a tube, especially because just like with a lancet-drum, I still have to carry around back-ups. Also, this glucometer is totally more complicated and the instructions are actually LESS detailed than the Aviva’s.
I’ve loved two meters in my life. I loved my Aviva, even when my averages were climbing up, and, once upon a time, I used to be in love with my old Ascencia Elite XL meter. (Bayer meters used to be branded as Ascencia in the U.S.) The Elite was my first meter ever and the strips came individually wrapped. I could just grab the amount I needed for the the amount of time I was going to be out and not have to worry about touching the strip before putting it in the glucometer (the nurse who was teaching us about testing was very big on telling us that it was a crime to mishandle the strip) or about finding a way to wrap the it up discretely post-test. The fact that they didn’t come in a drum also meant that they could pack a little more discretely into other places like a backpack pocket – which is exactly what I did. That was a meter from nearly 10 years ago… and it was still slimmer than this damned “Breeze”… *grumble*
I think I’m mostly just irked because when I first went to see Dr. Endocrinologist, I carefully researched which meters my insurance would cover and made sure to pick out a couple that I preferred based on reviews. This time, I just got a lovely phone call in the middle of the day from the mail-order pharmacy that the MFM’s office contracts with (they “require” their patients to get their testing supplies via mail-order, which makes me wonder if they get a kick-back) telling me that I would have to pay full price for the Aviva strips or that they could charge me full price for the other meter that Dr. McMFM’s office uses. Lame, lame, lame. That was also back in February… and I’ve had supplies from my old ‘scripts and some extra boxes that my mom had on hand that held up through just today… so I’ve also been paying for these Breeze supplies that I sure as hell didn’t quite need yet…
After I’m done with the MFM, I’m just going to have to use the Freestyle Lite. I liked it at first because it was small and you could light up the display, but it quickly fails to keep time properly and it’s very sensitive to heat and dampness (I’m rough, what can I say). At least it’s cheap so it’s easily replaceable. Also, since I have to pay out of pocket for lancets anyway, I can still use the drum-style Accu-chek Multiclix ones.
Eh, I need to go eat my protein snack and go over the instruction manual for this meter again. G’night y’all.
P.S. “Tan” colored compression knee-highs are heaven sent.
Pregnant and... 