The new meter
Posted by blueraindrop on July 1, 2009
Finally got a new blood glucose meter the other day.
My old one worked perfectly fine. However, because they can, the company likes to decide to stop making the test strips for the older meters to get you to buy a new one.
So.. even though I only use it when things get out of whack and I get major sugar crashes… so it probably has less use total than most meters used by diabetics get in a month.. the old one had to be replaced anyway.
Gotta love capitalism’s results sometimes.
Anyway, so I got this new meter. Looks pretty much like this..
Wide but short, with the strip going in on the side. My old one was more square, with the strip going at the center of the bottom… like this one..
So just because I hadn’t checked fasting blood sugars in quite a while, I decided to run one yesterday morning. And got 86.
86? With the exception of pregnancy, my numbers either run pretty close to 100, or if they are going to be off a bit, they go to the high side.
But, 86 is still within the “normal” range. So not like it was anything critical, just a bit unusual for me. So was something I was still a bit concerned to keep an eye on.
So this morning, I got 103. Much more what I was expecting.
But when I hit into the memory to see what time in the morning I had gotten the 86 to compare the two, the first thing it gave me was the average. 101.
101??? average of 86 and 103 is not 101.
About 10 seconds later it got back to my 86 so I could check the time.
Only it wasn’t an 86. It was a 98.
98??? I know I saw 86.
It took me about 10 more seconds to realize I’d had the meter upside down the previous morning.
Have I mentioned I’m not a morning person? I’d never really noticed how nice it was on my old meter that I could tell right side up even when half asleep first thing in the morning and without my glasses on. New one looks the same really either way, just the strip and buttons are on opposite sides from where they should be.
Sooo glad it hadn’t been one higher, giving me an upside down reading of 66… which I probably would have flipped out and called a doctor over.
