Does this make me a 'meter hoarder'???

We had Audrey's endo appointment today, and I took her three OneTouch Ultra Minis along to be downloaded. (All three of them are used - one for school, one for home downstairs testing, and one for home upstairs/middle of the night testing.) When the CDE came in to talk to us, she handed the meters back, and asked if we had any questions. I asked if she had any coupons for OneTouch Ultra Minis that we she could give us. She looked at me like I was crazy!

I went on to explain how we use each of the three we have, but I would really like to have an extra for middle school for Audrey to keep in her backpack since she will be walking home sometimes with friends or going to after-school activities. Since I have a specific purpose for the ones we currently have, I would like a new one for this reason. The more I talked, the more amazed she looked. My DH was having to bite his lip to keep from laughing, but my logic makes perfect sense to me. I told her I didn't mind buying one, but if there was a coupon, I would love to save money. Surprisingly, she ended up finding a meter (in a color we didn't have yet, even!) that she gave to us.

Based on the look on her face while I was talking, she was probably getting a good laugh out of it with her co-workers at lunch.

Am I crazy for wanting multiple meters? (I still think it would be nice to have one more to keep in my car...) How many meters do you have that you actively use at once?

 

We typically have 2 in use and several in strategic places. The upstairs one is our nighttime meter and it stays in her room. The other one is the traveling meter - it's in her diabetes bag and we use it at home and while we're out. It's the own she uses at the sitter's and at school.

Now, our strategic places...I keep a spare upstairs, a spare downstairs, a spare at school and a spare at the sitter's. I re-organized our supply cupboard recently and I sorted out everything. It was a mess! In the end, I had 13 meter pouches. I mean, it's been 5 years, but still... thirteen meters have been in use at one time or another...

 

I dont think so. I keep meters up stairs, down stairs in the bag we bring we go our and for good measure a spare in my purse just in case Cassidy forgets to tell me her d-bag needs a refill on strips so we can always check her when we needed to.

 

Well, we have at least 6 in play at the moment so I'm no judge.

I don't get the one meter philosophy... obviously

 

Gee, not 100% sure, but if I was forced to picked a number of meters rotating into use I would say 5-6, I think. (Not including the one the school nurses' office keeps with dd's back up supplies-- untouched for the school year.)

I never download them anymore because the numbers go into her pump.:cwds:

If we had only one meter, I would be late everywhere and there would be a lot of stomping around and grumbing at 2 am looking for the meter.

 

I'm not sure how many Avivas we have but it has to be at least a dozen.
My husband has 3 that he uses- one for work, one that stays on the kitchen island and one beside his recliner because why would he take a few steps to the kitchen to test if he is watching tv.

Connor has one on the kitchen island, one on his nightstand, one on the table by the sofa in the kids tv room, one in his travel bag, one we keep in his back up kit in the nurse's office at school, one that stays with him in his classroom, and a couple extras in case one of those quits.
Every time we go to the endo I ask for free meters and they almost always give me one. I like lots of back up meters and I like new meters.
We also have 3 Precision Xtras in use- one for home, one for travel bag, and one for school.

 

Absolutely it makes sense to have multiple meters. I have one in my car, one on the dining room table, one by my daughter's bed, one in my daughter's purse and one in an emergency bag.

 

I guess we're the strange ones because right now we use one. When school is in session, we use two - one at home and one at school. We have backup meters, of course, but they're very rarely used.

 

We have one that we use and one backup. I think there's a third in a drawer from years ago but I'm sure we have no strips.

I'm thinking 4 or more is a little ..... odd.

 

You're not alone. We are meter "hoarders" as well. But we usually just use one -- the one that communicates with her pump. However, I am not too fond of One Touch and would really prefer using the Aviva (which I keep in my purse).

And since we travel a lot -- we usually have a back-up meter to the back-up meter. For a short trip, we just have one back-up to the back-up (LOL). For inter-country trips, I have an extra one in my purse, and each carry-on suitcase has complete supplies (we always have two carry-on for long trips so that if one gets lost, we still have the other one).

When we're at home, there's an extra meter in the kitchen and next to my bed. And we also have extra meters stored with the rest of her other d paraphernalia.

The first two Accu-check avivas we had broke after only three months of use. Then I "fried" an accu-check nano in my purse. I think I left it several times in very hot weather. So, yeah, we like keeping extra meter around.

 

I'm type 2 and have 4 meters that I can use anytime.

 

We've got 2 that are in use -- primarily we use the Freestyle Lite and secondarily we use the One Touch that talks to his meter (but we don't like it much).

Then I've got about 6 others, too. I just feel more secure having several backup meters at our house, plus some stashed at grandparents' houses, etc. I've always got an eye out for free meters, rebates on meters, and coupons.

 

We only use one...we use the One Touch. We had a bunch of the minis, but I could never find all of them to take in to appointments to be downloaded....plus the buttons on the mini are too easy to screw with, and I kept finding the times and dates had been changed...making the data useless to me when I downloaded it.

 

We have several meters, but we only use the remote meter for her ping. If I want to double check something or on the rare occasions that she's misplaced her meter, we'll use a different one. Before she started pumping though, that is a different story, lol. We had one for her box where I keep everything, one for her go bag, one in my purse, one in the car, etc. I wish I had more meters for just in case times, but one touch won't give me anymore of their freebies, lol.

 

Maryanne--just curious about something. We've only used One Touch meters. I've used an accu-chek aviva, but it was not something we had a prescription for strips for, just freebies. I've seen the freestyle meters, but never used one. Why do you prefer it over the one touch? I'm wondering if I'm missing out on something good, lol. I'll have to check medco's website later and see if any strips besides the one touch strips are preferred. I should go to the other meter websites and see if I can get some freebies to try.

I like using the remote meter though, especially at night so I don't have to get her pump out to do corrections.

 

You should have seen the look on my CDE's face when she asked to download my meter and I pulled out the meters. She wanted to see what the standard deviation was and ended up having to do some math. I told her I like to be prepared. Hey I even have the Multiclixes to go with said meters which are all Avivas.

 

So far we just use one because it helps me keep track of her numbers if I forget to write one down. School starts soon so that'll be a second one. I have never experienced a low yet so I do not have to wake her up in the middle of the night. However, every time I go to endo for classes or something I end up with a new one, so I have like 3 extra and a script for 4 more.

 

We have 3 meters in constant use, and quite a few in the supply closet as backups. He has one in the family room, one upstairs in his room for nighttime checks, and one that he carries in his kit to use at school. He also has a spare at the nurses office, in case the one in his kit dies.
If you're a meter hoarder, we are too.

We keep a written logbook, so that's what our endo looks at. They don't know how many meters we use, but they always ask if we need any more.

 

We have 6.

OT Ping. Our main meter at home.

Mini-Backup I carry in my purse

Mini-In Abby's Dance bag/running bag

Mini-In nurses office for them to use if she forgets her meter at lunch or they need to test her in an emergency, they tend to just grab and go

Mini-Backup for school/in nurses office

Mini-In Abby's backpack, the main one she uses at school

When we go to the endo though we only bring the Ping and the one she carries in her school kit. The others she really only uses maybe 1 or 2x's a week. I always will log for 2 weeks prior, so that's really what the endo looks at. She likes the chart we use because it's straightforward and she's not flipping between meters and pages.

 

We have 4 Bayer Contours in use: one in the bedroom, one in the living room, one in my purse and one that Kathy keeps in her purse/backpack.

The one in my purse is just an extra that doesn't get much use, but all the others are used daily. I don't see it as a weird thing to have more than one or two, I think it just makes it easy to have one handy at all times, wherever you are.