Blood Glucose Meters

A blood glucose meter such as those produced by Bayer Diagnostics including the Ascencia Breeze and Ascensia Contour are a tool which helps a person with diabetes to meter their blood glucose (sugar) levels themselves. They may also sometimes be referred to as SMBG's.

Each one of the devices is about the size of an MP3 player and most run on batteries. There are even some models which come with a carry case also. These then allow you to store other essential pieces of equipment that you will need to carry with you so that you test your blood sugar levels at anytime and anywhere.

Most of the models today operate using two different systems. The first is known as reflectance photometer devices and these blast a small beam of light at the blood sample and will then measure the changes to the light as it bounces back at it. The other devices are known as electrochemical meters (the more modern of the two devices). It works by measuring the electrical currents produced by the glucose found in the blood sample provided. But which ever one you use will then produce a number which indicates just what level of glucose there is in your blood.

We have explained a little bit about what glucose meters do, but just how much does one cost? Certainly they are not as expensive as you may think and if you were to look for one you may find that there are some being offered to people for free. Certainly in the USA you may discover that your health insurance will cover the cost of you getting your diabetes supplies. However if they do not or you do not in fact have insurance then a lot of pharmacies and clinics will provide these meters for people to use at no charge whatsoever. Unfortunately although you may actually get the meter for free you may well discover that you will need to buy the test strips yourself for them. The problem being that the test strips available today can not be used between various different models and makes. So you will only be able to use the ones that are actually designed for the model you have. However the Ascensia Breeze helps to alleviate the situation because this uses a disc that contains strips so no longer do you need to worry about fiddling around with individual strips every time you need to carry out a test.