Meter Rant

Hello everyone, I want to give fair warning this is not about living with the disease though it is about living with the disease. I want to vent or rant or whatever you want to call it today. For the last three years I have been on the Animas® One Touch® Ping® as my insulin pump. I have heard many people speak badly about it and others speak good; though my personal experience has been great with it. Here is the rant, my wonderful insurance company has decided to no longer support the One Touch® Meter and test strips, but they are still supporting the pump. This is just great the meter that syncs with my pump directly for dosing communication is no longer supported, let’s just rip the pump away and put me back on shots it would be less complicated than what I am going to have to do now. As if the bag I have to take with me with emergency supplies is not large enough with all the glucose tabs, dextrose pens, spare insets, spare cartridges, extra bottle of insulin, site dressings and a whole host of other things; I now must carry two Glucose meters. The first is this new brand that has been jammed down my throat by the insurance company; the second is my One Touch®. Now if I wanted to spend over $200 a month buying my own test strips I can very well keep using my current meter, but as hard as times are I am lucky to pay gas at times let alone $200 in test strips.

So now I have the new meter that I take my glucose level on, then I have to pull out my old meter and use it. This meter monitors how much “insulin on board” I currently have, for those who do not know “insulin on board” is just a way of saying the amount of insulin that is left in my body since my last bolus dose combined with my normal hourly dose. Each hourly dose is distributed a micro dose every three minutes to equal my actual hourly dose. I enter the amount of carbs I am about to eat, then enter the glucose level from the other meter, then the One Touch® tells me how much I am to bolus dose to keep my insulin in line with my carbs and current glucose level. Then here is what I love the meter communicates with the pump via wireless communication and transmits all the entered information, then actually delivers the correct dosage. I do not touch the pump it stays in my pocket. I want these insurance people to live on what they allow for us as diabetics, we are sort of the outcast of society since we are the biggest insurance cost according to insurance companies. I guess that means we do not deserve the right treatment. Sorry rant over.