by Tim
Blood Glucose Meter of the Year
8:00 am in General reviews by Tim
Meters, meters everywhere
It’s fast approaching the end of 2009 and every form of media is crammed with lazy, poorly composed “end of the year” reviews. And, of course, your soaraway Shoot Up is no exception.
But forget those boring articles, TV clip shows or back-slapping awards ceremonies you see on the television. Who cares about comedy awards, or Baftas or even the Oscars, when you have Shoot Up’s soaraway Blood Glucose Meter of the Year award? Yes, I’ve poured myself into my dinner suit to write this article live from the glitzy surroundings of our kitchen table! Woo!
2009 has been a controversial year for blood glucose meters (actually, it hasn’t; I’m just trying – without much success – to add a tiny degree of dramatic tension to the proceedings…) with a whole range of new meters coming on the market, some of which I’ve bothered to test.
Anyway, the first that must have a mention (if only a dishonourable one) is of course Menarini’s GlucoMen LX, which was almost universally despised by anyone who’s had the misfortune to use one. Nasty, tacky and cheap, the GlucoMen LX inspired nothing but revolted disdain in this reviewer. Hopefully Menarini will try harder next time and I hope they forgive me for getting my horrible review to be the second result in Google’s search results for their product.
Moving swiftly on, the Accu-Chek Aviva Nano is certainly worthy of mention for its sexy, sleek looks and useful functions. However, it was badly let down by Accu-Chek’s crappy looking test strip that just makes the whole lot look ugly. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a perfectly good test strip – but it needs a serious redesign to sex it up.
But, in my view, this year’s winner is the pretty wonderful Abbott Freestyle Lite. It looks pretty sexy, has some of the best test strips on the market and two great features. The first is the ability to add more blood to a sample if you don’t squeeze out enough first time around, which saves wasting a strip. And also stops the utter, utter misery having to repeat a test after you’ve spent 5 minutes trying to get blood out of freezing cold fingers. The second worthy feature is a little LED that lights up the test strip when you’re testing in the dark. A simple addition – but one that’s bloody marvellous.
So there we have it – congratulations to Abbott and their joyful Freestyle Lite. Here’s to 2010 – cheers!
You can see all our blood glucose meter reviews here.
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Not only the cool little strip light (ha ha!) on the freestyle lite meter, but as soon as you’ve got enough blood, the light moves to the screen so you can see the result, which means you can turn the alarm off too – great for the cinema… I’m a fan. If only they made red ones.
@Caroline See, I would prefer it if it was black myself. Black’s much cooler than red.
Both are cooler than icky navy grey… Especially together. How much influence do you reckon you have with these people?
Less than none
As a proud user of the winning meter, I would be delighted to accept its award on Freestlye’s behalf!
you’re right about accu cheks crappy test strips. Hate em! In fact, the test strips are part of the reason I stopped using accu chek! Not sexy enough!
Now the freestyle. I have to say I have never ever used one. I’m pretty happy with my OneTouch UltraEasy right now, but am holding out for the new shiny usb one thats out next year!
I am also a huge fan of the Freestyle Lite. Especially, as Caroline points out, the way that the light switches from the strip to the display after you’ve applied the sample. And I never had to re-test due to a bad sample. EVER.
Now how can we convince our insurance companies to cover the Freestyle strips and when will the Freestyle Lite talk to my Medtronic pump? How did One Touch get its death grip on all of the insurance companies and pump manufacturers, anyway?
Nici
A Sweet Journey to Motherhood
http://typeoneandttc.wordpress.com/
Hurrah! The prize is a gem-encrusted aircraft carrier – when can you come and collect it?