What to do with used Glucose Monitors, unused lancets and unused test strips..??

[starkiller]

Had to go to a glucose meter that incorporates your insulin dosage (yeah, a real drag as I have had to start injecting myself with insulin, but, I am going to make a concerted effort with diet and exercise to get off it as soon as I can), so have a couple of Free Style meters that have been used, a Bayer one that uses discs that has not been opened, lots of test strips and lancets for the Free Style's. Any ideas?

[PolkieMan]

Call a free clinic

[Glowrdr]

Diabetic Karma? Not needing these items myself, I'm not sure how "creepy" it would be to accept something like this over the internet. I don't find anything wrong with it, but then again - this doesn't apply to me.

[starkiller]

This is not karma, this is trying to find someplace to donate these too rather then throwing them away...

[Glowrdr]

I know it wasn't listed as a karma - I was suggesting that you could maybe offer it to someone that needs it? Not sure if something like that could just be dropped off at a local shelter or not - but I'm sure there could be someone of need even around here

[headrott]

If you cannot control your blood sugar without insulin, you are certainly better off being on it. Are you only taking a long lasting insulin (such as Lantus, NPH, Ultaralente, etc)? Or are you taking both long and short lasting?

As you said, if you excercise and watch your diet (lose weight) you should be able to stop taking insulin (as you stated). Consistancy efffort in diet and excercise are the keys to success.

As to what to do with the meters, strips and lacets? I have not had to deal with getting rid of any items. I think PolkieMan's idea is a good start though.

[Syndil]

Might try a veterinarian. When our cat got diabetes, which is fairly common for old cats, we used an old meter and expired test strips. Worked fine and saved having to buy them just for the cat since he did not have insurance, of course. Had to set the date on the meter wrong so it didn't think the strips were expired, but they seemed accurate enough. Might just put up a paper on the bulletin board in the office and see if anybody wants it, like they do for kittens and stuff.

But for human use, meters these days are cheap to come by, so might have trouble giving them away. The companies want to get you into their meters as quickly and easily as possible so they can start making money off of all the supplies you (or your insurance company) will need to buy for it--strips, lancets, etc. Another consumables money pit, like printer ink, etc. I also think this is why strips are given such short expiration dates, so you can't stock up on them when they are cheap and then not have to buy any for a while. Huge money making scam, IMO, but whatever. Google "expired strips" and you'll find many people still use them.

[Polkersince85]

If I had an extra test set, I would store it with a fresh set of batteries, (not installed). There may be a time when it would be handy if the primary unit failed. When something is mission critical, redundancy is included in the plan.