Four years ago, my regular doctor had me submit to a battery of blood tests. One reading was for blood glucose (AC1). If the numbers are between 6.0 and 7.0, it indicates you are pre-diabetic. I think my reading was 5.9.
I was told to watch my diet, avoid sugar products and of course the obligatory speech on losing 20 pounds. I was not diabetic but family history with my Mother put me in a higher risk category. I asked the doctor how I would know if I was making progress. He gave me a “free” meter for testing my blood glucose so I could check myself daily. The meter indicates how close I am to normal 100. Most people fluctuate between a low of 80 and can spike into the high 100’s after eating. The body is supposed to metabilize back to 100 hours after eating.
You need a prescription for tiny paper test strips for the free meter. The strips cost $1 each. The presciption is for 100 strips or $100. A typical diabetic may use 3-4 strips per day. I was only testing myself once per day to determine trends. $1 per day. After 4 years of testing my morning blood glucose, I was usually around 115 which I understand is fairly typical after sleeping.
I stopped testing for blood glucose levels.
It took about 1 month for a call from the prescription service department of Walgreens. They noticed that my purchase of blood glucose strips had fallen off and they were wondering why. I should have said “none of you damn busines” but I wasn’t quick enough to go into my nasty mode. I told Walgreens that I was no longer testing for diabetes. The next question was “was that my decision or my doctor’s”. I continued my “stupid interview” by saying that it was my doctor’s” (it really wasn’t, it was my decision)). Walgreens responded with an “oh” and hung up.
Here comes my rant! It really annoys me that Walgreen’s and the drug companies are montoring my use of diabetes test strips. It is none of their business. The truth is that diabetes is big business. My guess is that the test strips cost less than $.05 to make and there is $.95 in profit. My decision to stop testing myself was screwing up the profitability of the “drug cartell”.
My personal medical information is between me and my doctor. Walgreens is just a supplier of medication. I suspect the doctor (who gave me the free meter), the drug company who makes the free meters available to the doctor and the Drug store (Walgreens) are all in collusion. Is there anyone out there that really cares about me as a person?
Love,
Dad