gouging?

[piranha]

whoa. so i've been looking at blood glucose meters. looks like there are many, with more or fewer fancy features (and prices). and i've found copious rebates of the type advertised with "buy 100 test strips and get the meter free". which immediately made me suspicious about where the profit lies, and indeed, it lies in the strips, not the meters.

the test strips are hideously expensive, just about $1 per each at local pharmacies. doesn't sound so much? multiply that by 4-12 times, depending on how often you test your blood per day (how much control you need; type 1's usually more than type 2's). that adds up quickly to $120-360 a month, $1460-4380 a year. *gah*.

those strips cannot take that much to manufacture, and furthermore the scale is huge here, because so many people have diabetes. dear pharmaceutical industry: you suck.

so i am not going for the spiffiest meter, but for the meter that takes the cheapest test strips. unfortunately that might mean shopping at w*lmart.

Comments

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I thought there was a way that didn't use strips? Still, worth knowing.

Re: gouging?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

there are a couple of methods that don't use strips, but the cost is a lot higher (up front), and i can't just walk into a pharmacy tomorrow and get one. i can see one reason why the development of non-strip meters for home use is lagging, too -- the test strips are such a _fine_ business for the industry.

Re: gouging?

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I think the people I knew were type I diabetics from childhood who were testing a lot of times a day, so it probably made more sense for them to make the larger up-front investment.

Also, medical costs are different here in Oz - it's just possible the government decided the strips were pricegourging and so supports purchase of the other devices.

Re: gouging?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

the spiffier machines do continuous measuring, which is much more useful for type 1's, though apparently the speed is slow enough that when in serious doubt they'll still need to use the test strip method (which can give results in as little as 5 seconds rather than 5 minutes). i am not sure whether all of the continuous methods require minor surgery as well, but i think they might, since the sensors still have to have contact with blood.

non-invasive methods (IR, ultrasound, dielectric spectroscopy) seem to be under development, but not yet ready for prime time use (i haven't looked very far into this).

[masonk.livejournal.com]

The "good" news is, if you're diabetic, insurance generally covers a big chunk of the strips. Ditto Medicare.

But yeah. It's totally handles and razor blades.

Re: gouging?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, if you have insurance in the US, or qualify for medicare.

but then it drives up the cost of insurance instead of your out-of-pocket expenses. which is also not a good thing overall.

(nice icon though. :)

[kmd.livejournal.com]

... and my parents drive across the border into Canada to buy my Dad's test strips because they are so much cheaper there.

canadian / US cost of test strips

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

they do? that surprises me (especially now that the canadian dollar is just about on par). i've been trying to find cheaper prices online than i would pay locally, and i can find them a little cheaper, but several US online pharmacies offer _way_ better prices than canadian ones, and more choice. in fact i would have ordered from this one place, if they shipped to canada.

http://www.hocks.com/ in case that might be useful to your parents.

Re: canadian / US cost of test strips

[kmd.livejournal.com]

Well, the change in the Cdn$ vs US$ may have tipped the scales. They used to drive across the border to buy all of his diabetic supplies back when they lived in Southeast Michigan full time, which was about 3-4 years ago now.

[dr-brat.livejournal.com]

so i am not going for the spiffiest meter, but for the meter that takes the cheapest test strips. unfortunately that might mean shopping at w*lmart.
Link

Thus paying one gouger to avoid another. Eeeyuuuuch!

[blur01.livejournal.com]

My doctor doesnt like it, but I cheat like a mad man. The A1C does a great job of helping to regulate the oral meds that I have to
take. I have a meter, and I have strips but I do not test nearly as regularly as the sawbones would like. But I am "mostly" controlled with high doses of oral meds. If I were insulin dependent I'd have to test quite a bit. For a while I was but I was not into causing myself pain on a regular basis (shut up, brad) so I did everything I could to
get off the needle and did so.

controlling blood sugar

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, if i really have to deal with this on a long-term basis i am not foreseeing loads of compliance if my past history is any indication (and what else would be, wishful thinking? *heh*).

i can keep up a testing regimen for a while, like half a year. i did a lot of book keeping when the paramour and i were experimenting with a low-carb diet. but i was glad when we ended it (and we didn't actually formally end it, we drifted off it). it was too damn much work.

also, poking several holes in myself every day? so not my idea of fun. if it were a non-invase thing, i could possibly get used to it and make it a habit; i am doing this now with measuring my blood pressure several times a day.

i wonder what will win, my hatred of being dependent on medication or my hatred for discipline and pain. probably the latter; it's pretty strong.

but intellectually i am strongly in favour of testing. i like the idea of knowing how eating different foods affects my blood chemistry (and my brain chemistry). if i had little bots in my bloodstream that would take those measurements and report to me on a heads-up display, with data easily uploaded to a computer for record-keeping and analysis, i'd be right onboard with that.

[platonios.livejournal.com]

Take good care of yourself Pleo!!!!
I need my mentor healthy and ready to play havoc with me...just kidding, I know how disciplined my guru is!

Sorry I can't offer any advice as I have no experience at all with diabetes...
But my thoughts are with you...

discipline

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*laugh*. i am totally NOT disciplined. i am good for limited amounts of time, like for an experiment of a few months, but for the long term? uh hn. if i am not inherently motivated for something, i will fall off the wagon in no time. never been able to follow an exercise regimen, for example, because i actually hate exercise for exercise's sake. i don't _like_ discipline; after ditching my toxic birth family (who were really big on discipline) i've never been able to return to it, even if it would be good for me in some respects.

so, testing my blood sugar a few times a day for a couple of weeks? easy. doing it for a couple decades? unlikely, unless i can make it fun. and poking holes in myself -- not fun, so i can mostly foresee what's gonna happen there.

Re: discipline

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Just as a datapoint, once someotherguy got his numbers under control (with a combination of drugs, diet, and exercise, and then dropped the drugs after the diet/exercise did their trick), his doc's recommendation for testing went from a few times a day to once every week or two.

Re: discipline

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh good. that's what i am hoping for, especially the dropping of the drugs once better habits are formed. i am willing to change my habits (within what is possible for me; a total change of eating and exercising habits isn't because it would affect my quality of life too much, but there's quite some leeway). was it hard for him?

i am not personally worried about the cost of the strips (we can afford it), i am just offended at the industry for doing this to people.

Re: discipline

[platonios.livejournal.com]

i will fall off the wagon in no time. never been able to follow an exercise regimen, for example, because i actually hate exercise for exercise's sake.

I knew I did a good job in choosing my mentor!!!

Lead the way to fall of the wagon please! I'm right behind you!!!

Much love and adoration,
your platonios

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Your health insurance doesn't cover the strips? (I have almost zero sense of how health insurance works in Canada.)

health insurance

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

insurance coverage of testing supplies is highly variable across canada. public medical insurance is handled on a provincial level, and here in BC it doesn't cover the strips (it does the meters). one can buy private insurance which might cover this and other contingencies (i don't).

this might be foolish savings by public insurance because i bet the high cost of testing supplies correlates with people taking less care of themselves: testing less, and having higher blood sugar rates. which in the long run can cost public insurance extra due to complications from diabetes. i don't know how the numbers pan out, that's just my suspicion from past experience looking at self-care behaviour. the easier and cheaper you can make it the more compliance you get and the more money you save in the long run.

there seems to be a provincial program here that pays part of the testing supplies if you take a diabetes care educational program, one of the pharmacists told me about that. my doctor didn't, but i'm gonna go to the diabetes education centre at the hospital anyway; i can find out there i imagine. anyway, it's not clear that i will have to do a lot of testing; i figure i'll see after doing it regularly for 2 weeks what the numbers say. i'll probably test a lot at first to examine how eating what foods affects my blood sugar, and then taper off to once a day -- the costs for that aren't all that high.