How it used to be done!
For as long as I can remember (literally!) the forum has had threads concerning blood testing and the difficulty experienced by many in getting their doctors to prescribe the strips. This post was actually the start of the first thread on the topic, posted a day before the forum’s official launch day, and was the first real discussion thread on the forum.
There is so much that so many of the medical community do not seem to understand about testing. Of course, most are driven to restrict test strips purely because of the cost – if they were ten a penny, I very much doubt that such restrictions would exist. As it stands, test strips cost the NHS around £15 for 50 which, if you multiply by the number of people diagnosed with diabetes (of all varieties) comes to quite a considerable sum of money.
Often though, the arguments against testing are fallacious. Some GPs will argue that, particularly if a person is diet and exercise (D&E) controlled, then a six-monthly HbA1c test will suffice to indicate whether medication is required. Another argument is that a person may be led into obsessive testing and may become depressed and demotivated if the tests reveal high levels frequently. However, if testing is coupled with good education about how and when to test, and how to use the information obtained – primarily to discover what foods and in what quantities are tolerable in a person’s diet – then testing may lead to a happier, more flexible diet and lifestyle with a much-reduced risk of complications.
It’s not only those on D&E who are restricted. In fact this thread was commenced by a Type 1 person who was told they would be restricted to a ludicrous ONE TEST per week! For someone on insulin therapy, or certain oral medications, this is positively dangerous! Someone administering insulin needs to test before each injection so that they can calculate how much insulin to inject before eating or bed. For most, that means a minimum of 4 tests. Beyond this are tests needed when feeling low, feeling high, before and after exercise, before and possibly during driving, when ill – the list goes on. Even my own GP, who is normally very switched on about these things, was concerned that I was testing, on average, around 6 times a day.
I expect that this will remain an issue for as long as there is a need to test. Perhaps some time in the future we will all have accurate continuous glucose monitors, or some other mechanism for making sure our blood sugar stays within that narrow, acceptable band of between 4 and 7 mmol/l, and will no longer need expensive, disposable strips. It’s unlikely to happen soon though. Meanwhile, thousands of newly-diagnosed diabetics will get told ‘you don’t need to test’, ‘strips are too expensive’, and will be left confused and without the essential tool they need to build a solid foundation for their diabetes management. And so, I expect that threads such as this very first discussion will keep on appearing on the forum, unfortunately.
OMG I HAD ONE OF THOSE D:
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