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Living with diabetes can present multiple challenges with everything from medications to meal planning. A large part of your success as a diabetic will also depend upon how you handle the challenge of managing your diabetes testing supplies.  A few simple tips on using these supplies in addition to following the manufacturer's directions can help to ensure that you meet these challenges.

Your supplies are really the backbone of your diabetic management plan. Therefore, a certain amount of planning and organization is vital, particularly in regards to ordering your supplies on time. Utilize whatever organizational method you're comfortable with. Write it down on a calendar, use the reminder function on your cell phone, and if you need more in-depth help, joining a diabetic support group may be able to provide you with the organizational assistance you need. By putting some thought and effort into planning the ordering of your supplies, you can rest with piece of mind that you'll always have your supplies at hand when needed.

Dealing with those little test strips can be enough to try anyone's patience. Starting with the basics, such as verifying expiration dates and checking programming codes against your glucometer, can help to prevent additional frustration. Try placing a small tissue or white napkin on the corner of the surface where you'll be working, then pour your test-strip out onto it. This helps in being able to see the pesky little things.

Although testing on yourself doesn't require the use of gloves, the surface of many disposable, properly fitting gloves can make picking up the test strips easier. You can also use a pair of tweezers.

When preparing to test your glucose, washing hands with soap and water certainly is important, and ideal. However, often the real world doesn't provide you with optimal opportunities. Alcohol can also make an effective cleanser. If all else fails, there is no nearby running water, and you don't have any alcohol pads, then many people wipe off the first sample of blood, and use the second, reasoning that it should be at least less tainted than the first.

By using a little forethought, organization, knowing and following the manufacturer's directions, and applying a few simple tips, you can successfully meet the challenge of managing your diabetes.

Research has shown that the key to reducing or avoiding diabetic complications is keeping the blood sugar tightly controlled; glucose meters are the main tool used to accomplish this. Currently there are about 75 different meters available in the United States with prices ranging from less than $10 to about $75. But take note: the price of the glucose meter does not necessarily reflect its quality or accuracy.

All glucose meters operate using the same basic steps:

1. Insert one end of a glucose test strip into the monitor.
2. Using a lancet and lancing device included with the meter draw a small drop of blood.
3. Touch the blood to other end of the test strip. In about 5 seconds, the test result will be displayed on the meter screen.

Before you decide on a glucose meter, you should check with your insurance company to find out what types of testing strips are covered by your policy. Each meter uses its own specific test strips, which means that your insurance provider is in effect telling you what type of glucose meter to purchase. Testing strips range from .50 to $1 per strip, and since most people test their blood sugar 3-4 times a day this is a significant ongoing expense: a person who tests four times a day with $1 test strips will spend $480 a month without insurance coverage.

After you’ve checked into your insurance coverage, you’ll want to consider what features are important to you. Below are some options to consider:

Coding. Some glucose meters require you to calibrate each batch of strips so that the meter will recognize them; many meters do not require this extra step. Not needing to code or calibrate the test strips saves a bit of time and effort.

Size. Most glucose meters will fit in the palm of your hand, but there are “mini” or “compact” styles that easily fit into a purse or pocket. If you’re on the go with your meter this might be an important feature.

Sample size and alternative testing sites. Pricking your fingers over and over can cause scarring, and sometimes it’s difficult to get a good-sized drop of blood, causing an “Error” message. Some glucose meters/lancets can be used with alternative testing sites, like the arm or the thigh. And some require a mere speck of blood to produce accurate results.

Operating Temperatures. There are glucose meters designed to withstand extreme temperatures, a feature that may be important for persons who work (or play!) outside in such conditions.

Information storage and computer applications. Many glucose meters can provide average results over a two-week, one-month or 2-month time period; no special equipment is required to view these averages. Other meters come with a USB cable that plugs the meter directly into your computer, along with diabetes management software available from the manufacturer’s website.

If you’d like more information about glucose meters, contact us at 1-866-422-4866 or fill out the short form on the right. We can provide you with information to better understand the many choices available to you.

While gestational diabetes is a diagnosis unique to pregnant woman; type 2 diabetes is a familiar plight for millions of Americans. However, important new research indicates that the link between these two types of diabetes may be closer than originally believed.

A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that:

“5 to 10 percent of women with gestational diabetes develop type 2 diabetes immediately after pregnancy, and that women with a history of gestational diabetes have a 35 to 60 percent chance of developing type 2 diabetes within the next two decades”.

If you were diagnosed with gestational diabetes during your pregnancy there are certain adjustments you can make now to lower your risk of contracting Type 2 Diabetes in the future.

Evaluate your risk: Contact your family practitioner to arrange a consultation. They will evaluate your personal and family history to determine how high your risk is for developing type 2 diabetes.

Evaluate your lifestyle: Smoking, a high-fat diet and obesity all put you at a greater risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Even though weight loss, quitting smoking and changing your diet may be difficult in the short-term, the long-term benefits are well worth the sacrifices. 

Evaluate your commitment to health: The easiest way to make a significant lifestyle change is by correcting one thing at a time. It's overwhelming to consider changes in diet, exercise, sleep patterns and smoking at all once. Remember that everything you do, from eating more fiber to walking an extra 1/2 mile a day, will benefit your health. Over time the small changes add up to a complete transformation in your lifestyle and, even better, your health.

Contact us for more information about diabetes prevention or to order diabetic supplies.

The cost to care for diabetics in the United States has increased dramatically over the last five years, but a study conducted by researchers at Wake Forest University may have identified a method to help diabetics better control their health.

The American Diabetes Association estimates that care for diabetics, including diabetes supplies, hospitalizations, medications and other associated expenses cost $245 billion in 2012. The ADA last estimated the total annual costs for diabetics in 2007. At that time, the total cost of diabetes was estimated at $174 billion.

The staggering increase shows why it’s vital for diabetics to properly manage their diabetes. According to the National Diabetes Education Program, people with diabetes should:

• Follow their meal plan.
• Get 30-60 minutes of physical activity per day.
• Stop smoking.
• Ask for help if you need it.
• Check your blood glucose and blood pressure as directed by your doctor.
• Take medications regularly.
• Maintain a healthy weight.

These are excellent tips but putting them into practice is often sometimes easier said than done. Education and information are great tools, but it can be difficult for diabetics to follow through on a plan of care if they lack encouragement and the ability to adapt to a changing environment.

Fortunately, researchers at Wake Forest University may have discovered a program that helps people control their diabetes which lowers the overall cost of their care.

The Healthy Living Partnerships to Prevent Diabetes (HELP PD) Study used community health workers stationed in local recreation centers. The workers implemented a problem-solving, empowerment-based program to encouraged people lose weight. Participants worked together as a group to identify barriers that kept them from losing weight and find ways to overcome their obstacles.

HELP participants lost an average of 13 pounds and kept it off during the course of the two-year study.

Weight loss helped program participants lower their overall cost of care. The Wake Forest researchers who conducted the study say the cost of participants’ care during the two-year study was around $850, compared to $2,631 per person recorded in a comparison, benchmark study.

To learn more about controlling diabetes, find numerous free resources on our website. For more information about diabetes supplies, feel free to contact us.

Diabetes has never been as big of an epidemic as it is in society these days. In the past, a majority of people often thought of diabetes as a health condition where you must simply reduce your sugar and fat intake on a daily basis. Little did they know that diabetes may end up actually causing serious health concerns like blindness without closely monitoring it!

Now that diabetes is reaching epidemic levels in most of the western world, this problem is becoming more serious than ever before. Your vision is one of the most critical and delicate senses that you have. In the digital information era, over 70% of sensory information we retain comes through our eyes. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, people living with diabetes are 25 times more likely to lose their eye sight than those who don't have diabetes.

With diabetes already being the number one cause of blindness² in the United States, it's no wonder eye care professionals are predicting a devastating increase in vision loss as the diabetes epidemic grows at an ever increasingly alarming rate.

People newly diagnosed with diabetes often have nothing more than minor vision fluctuations which settle when blood sugar levels improve with treatment. Early on it's easy to believe everything is fine. After many years though, continuously having high blood glucose can gradually damage the blood vessels at the back of the eye in the retina. This causes a problem called diabetic retinopathy and the longer you have diabetes the more likely you are to have retinopathy. The risk increases exponentially when you don't control your blood sugar levels. More than 70% of people with diabetes develop some changes in their vision within 15 years of being diagnosed with diabetes.

What is retinopathy? There are 2 types of retinopathy. Retinopathy is graded as "non-proliferative" or "proliferative". Non-proliferative retinopathy is the common milder form, where small retinal blood vessels break and leak. There may be some mild retinal swelling but it rarely requires treatment unless it causes hazy central vision or straight lines appear bent.

Proliferative retinopathy is the less common, but more serious form where new blood vessels grow abnormally within the retina. If these vessel scar or bleed they can lead to potentially serious vision loss including blindness. Early laser treatment can seal leaking vessels and slow the progress of diabetic retinopathy, but can't reverse existing vision loss.

Although there is currently no cure or method to eliminate the risk of eye damage, you can do two important things to help prevent the more serious complications.

• Make sure you keep your blood sugar under control with a healthy diet, regular exercise and daily blood glucose tests to ensure you stay within a healthy glucose range. If you are already  experiencing vision problems, we recommend testing your glucose with the Prodigy Autocode talking meter.
• Secondly, make sure you have an annual eye examination and be sure to tell your eye doctor to look for signs of diabetes related complications.

Diabetes is a disease that mostly affects blood vessels and in it's extreme forms, if it goes untreated can lead to some very serious health conditions like heart disease, stroke and even kidney damage. Clearly these life threatening vascular diseases related to diabetes deserve immediate attention, but high on the critical list for people living with diabetes is the risk of serious eye disease and vision loss. To help reduce the affects of diabetes on your vision, make sure you to always add an eye exam to your annual check up with a qualified eye doctor to prevent diabetes related eye problems! An experienced eye care professional will perform a dilated eye exam and can identify subtle changes long before you notice any vision change, and more importantly, early enough to do some good.

If you or a loved one has diabetes, or if diabetes is suspected, now's the time to seek a healthcare professionals advice and get a thorough eye exam before it’s too late! Don’t let diabetes claim your vision!

²American Optometric Association - aoa.org

Almost one third of people living with diabetes don't even know they have it. The symptoms of diabetes seem so harmless and often get disregarded as part of just getting older. This blog goes into the main types of diabetes and the most common symptoms related to each of them to help you better understand diabetes and how to identify it before it's too late.

The three main types of diabetes are Type 1 Diabetes, Type 2 Diabetes, and Gestational Diabetes.

Type 1 Diabetes

This type of diabetes has also been called insulin-dependent and immune-mediated diabetes. It occurs when your body can't produce insulin. The immune system attacks insulin producing cells in the pancreas. This type of diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and young adults, and was previously known as juvenile diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes increases the risk of other serious complications such as heart disease, nerve damage, blindness, and kidney damage.

Some of the symptoms include:

• Increased thirst
• Increased urination
• Weight loss even with increased appetite
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Abdominal pain
• Fatigue
• Absence of menstruation

Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is the most common type that fails to be diagnosed. It progress slowly and causes symptoms such as skin infections, poor healing, kidney problems, and vision problems. It is ordinary that neither these complications nor the diabetes is diagnosed after years of mild symptoms.

The biggest problem is that people living with diabetes usually have no major symptoms and therefore, don't seek medical care at all. They just assume the symptoms are a sign of aging. For this reason it's important to get regularly tested for diabetes especially if you are over the age of 40. Your physician may treat other diseases without even realizing to test for diabetes. You should make testing for diabetes part of your annual checkup, especially if you have any of the symptoms above and fall within the high-risk categories determined by the CDC

Gestational Diabetes

Gestational diabetes occurs during a woman’s pregnancy. Pregnant women who have never had diabetes before but have high blood sugar levels during pregnancy are said to have it. It affects 4 percent of all women during pregnancy.

Symptoms include

• Increased thirst
• Increased urination
• Weight loss in spite of increased appetite
• Fatigue
• Nausea and vomiting
• Frequent infections including those of the bladder, vagina, and skin
• Blurred vision.

Gestational diabetes can often be overlooked during pregnancy. It usually starts with mild symptoms that often can be attributed to other things. It’s important to get tested during pregnancy because the high blood sugars from gestational diabetes can do harm to the baby and sometimes lead to other complications. Most Obstetricians (O.B.'s) these days will recommend, if not, require a glucose test during pregnancy to ensure the safety of both you and your child.

Even if you’re not pregnant, you should make it a priority to get your blood glucose tested. Many pregnant women have gestational diabetes and disregard their symptoms as part of the prenancy. When it comes to you and your baby's health, getting your blood glucose tested is one of the easiest ways to ensure a pregnancy free of diabetes related complications.

If you’re having any of the symptoms of diabetes described above, it’s critically important to see your healthcare provider and discuss your health concerns, even if you feel fine. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Type 1 diabetes

Results from the body's failure to produce insulin, the hormone that unlocks the cells of the body, allowing glucose to enter and fuel them. It is estimated that 5-10% of Americans who are diagnosed with diabetes have type 1 diabetes.

Having type 1 diabetes increases your risk for many serious complications. Some complications of type 1 diabetes include: heart disease (cardiovascular disease), blindness (retinopathy), nerve damage (neuropathy), and kidney damage (nephropathy).

Type 2 diabetes

Results from insulin resistance (a condition in which the body fails to properly use insulin), combined with relative insulin deficiency. Most Americans who are diagnosed with diabetes have type 2 diabetes.

Having type 2 diabetes increases your risk for many serious complications. Some complications of type 2 diabetes include: heart disease (cardiovascular disease), blindness (retinopathy), nerve damage (neuropathy), and kidney damage (nephropathy). Learn more about these complications and how to cope with them.

Gestational diabetes

Gestational diabetes affects about 4% of all pregnant women - about 135,000 cases in the United States each year.

Because gestational diabetes can hurt you and your baby, you need to start treatment quickly. Treatment for gestational diabetes aims to keep blood glucose levels equal to those of pregnant women who don't have gestational diabetes. Treatment for gestational diabetes always includes special meal plans and scheduled physical activity. It may also include daily blood glucose testing and insulin injections. You will need help from your doctor, nurse educator, and other members of your health care team so that your treatment for gestational diabetes can be changed as needed.

For the mother-to-be, treatment for gestational diabetes helps lower the risk of a cesarean section birth that very large babies may require. Sticking with your treatment for gestational diabetes will give you a healthy pregnancy and birth, and may help your baby avoid future poor health. (see Diabetes Symptoms)

Pre-diabetes

Pre-diabetes is a condition that occurs when a person's blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough for a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. There are 41 million Americans who have pre-diabetes, in addition to the 20.8 million with diabetes.

To keep your diabetes under control, you need to regularly monitor your blood glucose level using a blood glucose meter. Diabetes is the leading cause of new causes of blindness and kidney failure, according to American Diabetes Association. In 2008, 48,374 people with diabetes started treatment for end-stage kidney diseases in the United States. It is also found that risk for stroke is 2 to 4 times higher among people with diabetes.

When it comes to diabetes, there are no expectations. Even blind or visually impaired people with diabetes have to constantly monitor their blood glucose level. In the earlier days, vision impaired people with diabetes had to get assistance from family or friends to find out their glucose readings displayed on the glucose meter.  But now, thanks to talking glucose meter technology those that are visually impaired or blind people with diabetes have a handy tool to help them be more independent.

Talking blood glucose meters are available in different varieties. The standard variety has an audible test results feature to "speak" the glucose test results to the person taking the test.

Nowadays, you can find several types of talking blood glucose meters. Modern talking glucose meters have similar working principles but the features and size might vary. If you're looking for a talking blood glucose monitor, you need to check out the features of a few of the latest models to pick the best one for your needs. When choosing a talking blood glucose meter, make sure the talking glucose meter has a clear audible voice. Another notable feature in audible meters is a "repeat test result" function. This feature is very high on the priority list for most people who are visually impaired testing their blood glucose because if you don't hear the result you can easily repeat it again.

In most modern talking glucose meters the monitor turns on when the test strip is inserted and in other meters you need to manually turn on the meter. If the meter you choose is an audible meter that requires coding it might not be the right glucose meter for your needs. As modern meters differ a lot in features, you need to decide on your unique requirements before choosing a talking glucose meter.

Aside from its audible features, you must also check out some other important factors such size, ease of use and maintenance, cost, special features, display and operating temperature to pick the best one that suits your unique needs and fits within your budget. You can get a talking glucose meter through a traditional pharmacy or through online retailers. If you are finding it difficult to pick the best talking glucose meter, you need to compare the features and price of the meters to choose the best one for you.

Diabetes is a chronic disease that can damage the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, eyes and nerves over time. Nearly 347 million people worldwide have diabetes, according to World Health Organization (WHO). Diabetes increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, blindness, foot ulcers and kidney failure. Overall, risk of dying is at least double among people with diabetes than people without diabetes.

Usually, people think that only diabetic patients need to monitor their blood glucose level to keep diabetes under control. However, most of the people have prediabetes, before they develop type 2 diabetes. Prediabetes is a condition in which blood glucose level is higher than normal but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. As overweight, obesity and physical inactivity can cause diabetes, even healthy people need to monitor their blood glucose level frequently using a blood glucose meter to ensure their blood glucose level is normal.

Blood glucose meter is a handy tool that helps you to determine the blood glucose level in an accurate way. A wide range of factors such as stress, exercise, diet, alcohol ingestion and dawn phenomena can increase the level of sugar in blood. So, you need to monitor your blood glucose level on regular basis to avoid further complications.

As modern glucose meters are available in compact size, you can carry the glucose meter with you wherever you go without any difficulties. When performing the blood glucose level test using a glucose meter, you need to use quality diabetic test strips to get accurate readings. When purchasing a glucose meter, majority of the cost will be due to diabetes test strips, so you need to pay attention to the cost of the blood glucose test strips when choosing a meter.

Important benefits of using blood glucose meter are listed below:

Better blood sugar control:

Using blood glucose meter after performing day-to-day activities such as eating, exercising and medication will help you to keep your blood glucose level under control.

Early detection of Hypoglycemia:

For all diabetics, low blood sugar or hypoglycemia is a concern. People on insulin therapy might get severe hypoglycemia and might become life threatening in some cases. Using a blood glucose meter, you might be able to detect even a drop in blood sugar level promptly before it becomes too complicated.

Less severe complications:

Determining your blood glucose level will let you to avoid medical emergency that might be caused as a result of high blood sugar level.

These are some important advantages of using a blood glucose meter on regular basis. When performing a blood glucose test using a glucose meter make sure you are using a new test strip every time to ensure you get accurate readings. Expired blood glucose test strips might give you incorrect readings. So, pay attention to the expiration date of your diabetic test strips when testing your blood.