Saturday, May 24, 2008

Where have all the pokers gone!?!?

A few weeks ago we lost every lancing device in the house. As you can see that is quite a feat to accomplish. I'm not too worried about misplacing any of them because we have backup meters & pokers at each major location that Brenna spends time visiting: Grammy & Graumpa's, preschool, & the Grandparents' VerHulst. I'll add notes to the flickr version of this picture later but you should know that the white BD poker is Brenna's favorite.

The newest "poker" in this batch is the Walgreens generic lancing device. It is difficult to put together and take apart to change out the lancette but I got it because it was the only thing available. Walgreens doesn't carry any other lancing devices anymore. The helpful advice I got from the folks in the pharmacy when I asked if there were any others available, "Call the number on the back of your meter. If they want you to test they'll send you a new one." I don't believe I will be shopping at Walgreens again. The Kaiser pharmacy doesn't have them on hand to purchase so I took a look at Rite Aid, Longs Drugs, and CVS. All of them carry the same crappy poker that Walgreens has only with their own logo and a couple of the locations also carry the $30 MultiClix. I don't want to shell out 30 bucks everytime a poker gets lost and I certainly don't want to spend that much for a backup at each location. Since it is a backup to our many other backups , hopefully, we won't have to use the Walgreens device very often.  So what has happened to all of the rest of the lancing devices that used to line the pharmacy shelves? I find it very, very strange that there are only these two lancing devices in retail stores. 

I would love, love, love to get the Pelikan Sun digital lancing device but right now I can't justify a $200 poker that isn't covered by insurance. Especially when we keep losing the pokers. Amy over at Diabetes Mine has a couple of good articles that she has written that make me want to justify that purchase. Until then, we'll have to keep an eye on the ones we've got. 

2 comments:

Christine said...

I actually think Walgreens had good advice- the companies WILL send you replacements.

Amberthyme said...

Only if you already have a backup in hand. If I didn't have anything to poke her with waiting for a replacement isn't an option.