Question about lancets and can I use same one twice?

Jan1956

Jan1956

Active Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
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She/Her
New to diabetes - watched a youtube hospital video on how to use Contour plus monitors and the nurse suggested that if you’re struggling you could use a lancet twice and it will be ok?
What do members think about this?
Also I recall one member mentioned that they use a lancet with Contour plus that can be used 5 times due to how needles are loaded. Does anyone know what this one might be?
Thank you.
 
Just twice!!

I change my lancet once a year on St Swithin's day as do others here and never had an infection as a result of reusing it that many times.
I am Type 1 and there were times before Libre when I was finger pricking as many as 16 times a day some days and a lancet still lasted a whole year and I wasn't always able to ensure I had clean hands for those tests either! Up at my stables mucking out I don't have easily accessible washing facilities so I choose my least dirty finger (usually my ring finger) for testing.

As regards the lancing devices which have cartridges of lancets, it is the AccuChek Fast Clix and it has a drum containing 6 lancets and you just click it on to the next lancet when you want to until they have all been used. The Fast Clix is considered to be the best lancing device on the market both for comfort and ease of use, but the cartridges/drums fr it are obviously more expensive. Doesn't matter too much if you are a St Swithin's day club member as a single cartridge lasts 6 years!! 😉
 
@Jan1956 I asked this on Wednesday having seen a comment in another thread and recently acquired a machine not yet used. I thought single use was wasteful ( obviously just on me)
Not sure how to link to it but I entitled it " lancets"
Basically yes but may become blunt eventually.
 
I'm still using the same box I got when first diagnosed with DM 2.5 years ago, and I still have 36 left out of 50. I sometimes feel I should order more or they will take them off my prescription.
.
 
24!!
 
rebrascora said:
Just twice!!

I change my lancet once a year on St Swithin's day as do others here and never had an infection as a result of reusing it that many times.
I am Type 1 and there were times before Libre when I was finger pricking as many as 16 times a day some days and a lancet still lasted a whole year and I wasn't always able to ensure I had clean hands for those tests either! Up at my stables mucking out I don't have easily accessible washing facilities so I choose my least dirty finger (usually my ring finger) for testing.

As regards the lancing devices which have cartridges of lancets, it is the AccuChek Fast Clix and it has a drum containing 6 lancets and you just click it on to the next lancet when you want to until they have all been used. The Fast Clix is considered to be the best lancing device on the market both for comfort and ease of use, but the cartridges/drums fr it are obviously more expensive. Doesn't matter too much if you are a St Swithin's day club member as a single cartridge lasts 6 years!! 😉
Click to expand...
 
so glad I asked this question I have saved myself !
It was getting such a pain changing them. I just feared they may get blunt after a couple of uses!
Thank you for your reply and putting my mind at rest.
 
silentsquirrel said:
24!!
Click to expand...
Took me a while to figure out your point with no reference to where you got that number from. Do you perhaps mean 50-36 = 14. Still flagrant decadence in 2.5 years but maybe most of them were used on friends and family!
Mine come in a box of 200 and I am going to need to spend several reincarnations as a diabetic to ever use them up, so quite frankly I don't care if they disappear off my repeat prescription list. If I ever need anymore I will be the oldest person on the planet and finger pricking will be very much a thing of the past and hopefully diabetes too by then.
 
rebrascora said:
Took me a while to figure out your point with no reference to where you got that number from. Do you perhaps mean 50-36 = 14. Still flagrant decadence in 2.5 years but maybe most of them were used on friends and family!
Mine come in a box of 200 and I am going to need to spend several reincarnations as a diabetic to ever use them up, so quite frankly I don't care if they disappear off my repeat prescription list. If I ever need anymore I will be the oldest person on the planet and finger pricking will be very much a thing of the past and hopefully diabetes too by then.
Click to expand...
No, I meant 25 years! My first box of 100 lancets issued with my original meter on diagnosis - so 24 years would be more accurate, and I also use the original finger pricker, though the meter is long gone. I have used other finger prickers in between, but they all broke or were lost, so I was overjoyed to find the original. I have tried other lancets but the last time they changed the cheapo meter from the GP surgery they were so painful even on a single use that I went back to the old faithful box. Still plenty left to last me out.
 
silentsquirrel said:
No, I meant 25 years! My first box of 100 lancets issued with my original meter on diagnosis - so 24 years would be more accurate, and I also use the original finger pricker, though the meter is long gone. I have used other finger prickers in between, but they all broke or were lost, so I was overjoyed to find the original. I have tried other lancets but the last time they changed the cheapo meter from the GP surgery they were so painful even on a single use that I went back to the old faithful box. Still plenty left to last me out.
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Ah!!
 
Like others I changed my lancet about once a year, or when it really hurt.
 
It's completely untrue that you can only use lancets once..you can use them many times...they stay really sharp for sometime.
 
stephenS50 said:
It's completely untrue that you can only use lancets once..you can use them many times...they stay really sharp for sometime.
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Manufacturers say that because they're only sterile on first use, so it isn't that you can't, it's that you shouldn't. People can make their own choices.
 
I have the original box of lancets somewhere too, with lancets still in it (big yellow ones for the guillotine device) - my changes tended to be when a new finger pricker gadget came out which required a new design of lancet, or as mentioned above when someone wanted to have a blood test done.

I must admit that since starting to use an Accu-Chek fastclick device I do change more often, mainly as it's quite easy to flick the switch on the side and get a new one whereas before it would need to really really hurt and for me to be near the box (assuming I could find it) for me to bother.
 
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