On September 1, 2010, my doctor informed me that I was Type II diabetic. Oh, joy. I’m able to control it through diet (my last A1c test came back at 5.9), but my body doesn’t regulate blood glucose real well. My doctor gave me a prescription for blood glucose test strips – Freestyle Lite – but even with my prescription coverage, these things work out to about 75¢ per test, and the prescription is for two tests a day. Basically, insurance partially defrays the cost of one 50-count pack of test strips per month. Personally, I want to keep a closer eye on things, but not at $1+ per test.
I ran across somebody saying good things about WalMart’s ReliOn Prime tester & strips. These cost only about 22¢ per test, without my medical insurance, so I bought a kit. I still had some of the Freestyle strips, so I did a side-by-side comparison with my last five Freestyles, and the readings matched ±3 mg/dl, which is close enough for me. I’ve used it for a couple of months now, testing 4-5 times a day to keep a closer eye on my blood sugar, and that, I’m sure, helped with my latest A1c test results.
So if you’re diabetic and want to save some money, I can recommend WalMart’s ReliOn brand. The strips are a little bulkier, the test results are a few seconds slower, and it took me a bit to figure out how to get them into the tester properly (it’s a tight fit), but at less than a third of the cost per test I’m not complaining. And they don’t require any more blood than the Freestyles do.