I need to buy blood glucose test strips, not covered by health insurance. I have a OneTouch Ultra meter, bought in the US, but the test strips are very expensive here, when buying in the apothecary.
Could I switch to a different brand of meter, for better economy? And where would be the best place, shop or online, to get the cheapest price for the test strips? Thanks.
I think your best bet is actually to go into a pharmacy and ask them how much the various appliances and strips are. You will at least get an idea of relative cost. My expectation is that anything in Switzerland is generally quite costly, better to get it from a weak currency country like the UK. I would then check it out online for best price. If you google 'glucose montitor' you will get a few hits. Accuchek do a model that contains 17 test strips inside. It's very handy as you dont have to keep putting in a new test strip each time. But if you are testing different individuals, you will need to obviously change the needle that pricks the finger.
A packet of 50 strips for ours costs 108chf...that's the 'going rate' here.
Our pharmacy was extremely helpful and could look up everything we needed off their supplier catalogues, and could also order in whatever we needed...
We found that we also needed a new meter since the strips here are issued to particular 'zones' (to stop inter-country trafficking of the products)...
But we emailed the supplier of our meter and they sent us two replacement meters for free...so we'd continue to use their strips!
Feel free to PM me if you want to ask any questions - our son has Type 1 diabetes...
But we've also bought some stuff up-front and to get the refund we need a copy of the prescription as well as the receipt...
If you do buy, make sure you keep your receipts because you might be able to claim back once you get a script...
Not sure why you'd test if you didn't need to - and if you need to then getting a prescription should be easy...
The strips are damn expensive in the U.S. I would think the price is similar.
Either way, these are strips that cost probably less than a cent each to manufacture - it's unfortunate that no governments crack down on our out-of-control medical/drug corporations.
Have you compared the cost of strips from Abbott, Roche or Braun, as you will see rather the same story, but the strips should be covered by your health insurance anyway.
The test you did is called a lactate test and is used to determine effective training intensities. Its usually only done when someone has a specific goal towards performance improvement though.
The only thing the test has with the blood glucose test is that the equipment looks similar, they are not interchangeable and won't be any good to anyone who needs to measure their blood sugar level.
With regard to Diabetic meters and obtaining strips from different countries, this is no problem for Ultra users as the meter can be set to accomodate both BG measurements methods, and this is all clearly stated on the vial of strips along with the specific cal' code for that specific batch of strips.
Oh, and I am pretty sure the reason why the 'one-touch' is so much cheaper is that they aren't making money on them...just trying to buy into the market...Johnson&Johnson can afford to do that...
Oh, or marry a pharmacist...
The EMEA market for the LifeScan franchise as part of J&J is quite small by comparison to the US. Strip pricing from manufacture to the DC's to the wholesalers has a set value, and this is where LifeScan makes its profit. Wholsalers to retailers is not directly within the control of the manufacturer and therefore increases cost to the end user.
Huge price wars and discounting in the US doesn't apply here, so I would stop bleating about the cost here, as you are no longer in the US. Unless your going to talk about farming exploitation of the market because meat is expensive, or pertol is expensive here, when compared to the free market Mecca that is the US.... and I bet your salaries increased when you came here!