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BG Meter advice please

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Davmii

Davmii

Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi all,

I have repeatedly tried to get different doctors and the Diabetes nurse to prescribe a BG meter as I would like to have some regular monitoring of levels. Their attitude is that it's not needed as nothing I can do can really influence the day to day results and I should just wait for my next appointment with the nurse in "3 to 4 months". It seems this opinion has been forced on them by the local health authority policies, but as a fairly newly diagnosed Type 2 I would like to see more regular results so I can judge what effect my diet and exercise changes have. My last prick test a week ago (I had to see the doc for a foot infection) was 9.7 which is a great improvement on the previous HbA1C result of 14.9.
Enough rambling sorry 🙂 The point is that I have decided to buy a meter for myself. While the cost of meters is not too off-putting the cost of supplies is staggering, for this reason I am attracted to the SD Codefree for which the strips are ?6.49 per 50 - at least ?20 less than other brands. However the reviews on Amazon and other places are mixed, with some reporting inaccurate readings so I am wondering if this will be worth having even at the low price.
Anyone have any experience of this device? Or any advice on other cheap-to-run meters please?
 
Before the 'CodeFree' was mentioned on these boards, many T2s used Abbot (freestyle) meters - available free from the manufacturer and strips can be purchased direct from Abbot at (I think!) about ?12-15 a pot.
 
I used the codefree before I went on Insulin and got my freebie from Accu-Chek.

The codefree, I found, was a good meter. I never had a problem with it, and it gave pretty consistant readings. When I changed over to my accu chek meter, I used both for a while to make sure the readings weren't too different, and the Accu-chek read me to be approx 1-2mmols lower than the Codefree.
For the price of it and the strips, I think it is a good buy.
 
Free meters

I have applied on a couple of sites that offer free meters but after answering the questions they say No, seems the freebies are only for T1, I suppose they think there is more test strip revenue to be had from them.
 
For the price I think it sounds a good buy, and providing readings if they are off, are always off by the same factor you can still use it effectively to analyse cause and effect, of course, how do you know it always reads 1 mmol higher or 2 mmols lower with having many results from two meters to compare against each other!!
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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