New "Pricker"

Over the last few days, Kacey's lancet--or "pricker" as she calls it-- has started to act up. It was getting harder and harder to press the button and once she pressed it then sometimes it wouldn't even stick her finger. I had several boxes of glucose machines since my sister-in-law works for Endo. She got her hands on several different ones for us just to keep as spare back ups. You never know when your glucose machine is gonna die and you need one. So I pulled out the One Touch, Accu-Check, Accu-Check Aviva, Contour and Breeze 2.

The One Touch lancet was very similar to the Freestyle ones. She's been using the Freestyle machines since she was diagnosed. In the hospital, they gave her the Freestyle Lite and we used that until she got Herbie and there is a Freestyle machine attached to Herbie so that's what we've always used. She had 4 lancets, all the same thing. Over time, two of them stopped working so she was down to two. She carries one in her purse that she takes everywhere with her and then we keep one at home for testing in the house so she doesn't take her lancet out and then leave the house without it (she's done that before!) Last night, she came to me and said "Mom, I think my pricker is broke." She kept trying to push the button and it wasn't working right.

I set the One Touch box aside and opened the Accu-Check. That one was connected to the machine so that wasn't gonna work. I opened the Accu-Check Aviva and that had a Multi-Clix with it. I was thrilled because I'd wanted to get her one of them after hearing everyone rave online about how nice they were. Whew! I'm glad I didn't buy one! She didn't like it at all. Not because it hurt but because it was bigger and made a loud --CLICK!-- when it released. It startled her when she pricked her finger and she said it reminded her of the ones they used on her in the hospital. She didn't like the push top and small button to press. After all, she's only gonna be 10 years old and she has to use whats comfortable for her! We set them aside and I opened the Contour. Ohhhhhhhh! Her eyes lit up! It was a lancet like she'd never seen before. It was different, it was new, it used the lancets she's used to, it had a small end where she could see where on her finger she was placing it and most of all...she was excited about it!

We took it out of the plastic and she ran to get a new lancet. We loaded it and I watched her stick her finger....not once...but TWICE with it! Just to see how it works.

It's called a Microlet 2. It's small and thats what she likes about it. That small little it so much easier to see where you're going to stick your finger. Another nice thing is on the tip there are little blood drops. One small, medium and large. There are no numbers! I remember Kacey getting so upset when we had to move her lancet number from a 1 to a 3 because her fingers were getting tougher. This shows the drops so there are no numbers to upset her. She tested with the small drop first and didn't get any blood. I'm guessing thats about a 1-2. Then she used the middle drop and got a perfect drop. So thats probably a 3-4. She laughed and said she didn't need that large drop! ;)

When I opened up the Breeze 2....there was the SAME lancet!! So we replaced the one in the house and the one in her purse with new ones. She was so excited! Sadly, I wasn't feeling the same thing. I was happy that she found one she liked but it made me really sad to watch her prick her fingers 6 times trying to find out which one she liked best and then it not phase her at all that she'd just pricked her fingers that many times. Like my D-Mom's said on FB...it's "Bitter-Sweet". In the end, I'm just happy that she's happy. It's like a "new toy" and the excitement of trying something new for a change.

I'm anxious to see how long these hold up? On an average...we've had these lancets last only a year. I guess thats good considering they get used 10-12 times a day! We will see!