Codefree Blood Glucose Monitor | Diabetes Monitoring Meter Tester | Blood Sugar Testing Kit with Strips, Lancets, Case - in mmol/L

Good .not used yet

When I first found out I had Type 2 Diabetes, I decided to get a blood monitor. So, brief look on Amazon and opted for the Codefree Kit; one big factor in my decision on choosing to get it from Home Health was the fact that I could buy it without the VAT directly - sometimes I believe you buy these things at full price then have to claim the VAT back, which I'd never have gotten around to doing.Anyhow, I received it in just a few days and was excited to see my blood sugar levels. Once it dropped through the door, the packaging was hastily dispatched and my kit opened. First, impressions were good as the kit comes in it's own case with sections for each component. In the case was the monitor, 10 test strips, 10 lancets, one lance and testing strips. There was nothing to set up and after a quick look at the instructions was ready to go. First job; unscrew the lance end and insert one of the lances - these come with a snap off cover on them so you don't inadvertantly stab yourself - slot it into the lance and tighten the top. You then pull the end of the lance out to prime it; it also has different penetration depths from 1 to 5 (I just have it on the latter). Once done, you simply take one of the test strips and slot it into the monitor. Next step, do the finger prick which is just a case of putting the lance on your finger and pressing the release button, click, bit of pain and hey presto and small droplet of blood. You then simply, hold the monitor strip to the droplet and there's a tiny channel that sucks the blood into the strip. The monitor then has a 5 second countdown and displays the result.So, what's it like? Well, for me now it is indispensible and in fact I've been getting a little obsessed with using it. It has helped enormously and one of the major things I use it to track is the impact of eating certain foods on my blood sugars - at times using it four times a day (eat something, wait a couple of hours for the levels to peak then check). I've stopped doing it so often now and generally check it once, sometimes twice a day. And because of the memory function I can also look back at my numbers. The big thing is that using it has made a big difference in that I've now dropped my base level from 11.5 to 8.7 (without meds)and hopefully keeping an eye on this will take it even lower.This comes with me whenever I go anywhere and really does enable me to see the effect of foods and drink on my sugar levels, I love it.Something you should be aware of when buying this though. You SHOULD BUY the Extra strips and lancets at the same time because you'll be out of the first batch really quickly and then chomping at the bit waiting for the next order to arrive. I'd suggest the 100 packs of each.

Codefree sticks are half the price of others. It is an old system, out over six years, and appears not to have the necessary ISO accreditations. The meter is small, light and easy to use but isn't self illuminated and looks dated. However, it stores and downloads results to the computer and is functionally as good as the many others. Worried about accuracy (and being a diabetic physician), I bought five different meters, including GlucRX and GlucRX Q, which are ISO accredited. Results correlated 70% with GlucRx Q and GlucRX, and these 70% with each other, but GlucRX Q gave readings 1mmol/l lower than Codefree and GlucRX. Whether this was particular meters, or general, I don't know.I would comment that the accreditation scheme isn't a very high standard to meet and that the meter technology seems a bit hit and miss. They don't provide proper quality control solutions with accurate known and labelled glucose concentrations probably because they'd always be "off" a bit and what do you do about it since the meter isn't adjustable.Conclusions are the meters are "miracles of minuturisation and convenience", but expensive in consumable sticks. They are not accurate but do give a general ballpark result which allow understanding of your sugar levels and daily changes and this helps adjust treatment. In my opinion they are not accurate enough to really rely on in adjusting daily insulin injections, for example, but are a definite help in understanding what your sugar is doing. Unfortunately, there are so many makes and suppliers with constantly changing models that an independent assessment would be out of date by the time it was published.The low cost of Codefree sticks, and performance the equal of others, makes this system a best buy.