Hi just a quick and positively stupid question.........just really started using my machine... now how do you folks dispose of the test strips and lancets? I mean do you just wrap them in tissue and throw in the bin? Up till now I have been putting them in a little pot with a lid, but then what please?
My take on this is, there is so little blood on the strips, and it dries very quickly. I tend to use the empty pot from the last pot of strips, if you see what I mean? I then just put this into normal domestic waste. To be honest, there could be more blood on a tissue from a cut finger than on a pot full of used strips. That would certainly have been the case after my recent oppsie with a sharp knife. Sharp knife 1 - finger 0 !
For lancets, the ones I use have a little blob at the top that I twist off to reveal the actual pricing needle? When I change lancet, I simply press the exposed sharp from the old lancet into that little blob, than again dispose the old strip pot. I don't change my lancets with every test (and nor do many), so there aren't many of them, so there's plenty of room in that little pot, for me anyway.
I guess I've tried to apply some thought into what we do throw in the usual rubbish - disposable razors, cans with open lids and so on. I know neither of those should have blood on them, in an ideal world, but my OH has been known to spill a little claret from time to time when he shaves.
I think for T1s with many, many injection needles the surgical waste pot makes sense, but I reckon I represent minimal risk in my practise.
Well done on testing. It's a really key part of understanding your personal version of diabetes.
🙂
