Right about this point is when I yelled (to no one in particular) that it shouldn't take three test strips, two meters, two batteries and four fingers to find out my blood sugar is low. I knew it was low because I felt like crap.

I'm furious with my blood glucose meter(s) at the moment. All of a sudden, about a month ago both of my meters started acting flaky. I replaced both batteries and they still randomly give me battery warnings. I have to insert and reinsert the test strip to get it to start up. In this most recent case, it took my blood, counted down from 5 and then gave me the generic "E-3" error which means I get to try again. Twice.

Each test strip costs $0.75 so I just spent $2.25 this evening to confirm that I felt crappy for a reason. Since my fingers are full of callouses, I had to use four fingers to try to get blood to start and then hope I could get enough out of it for my three attempts at a test. They don't mention this stuff on those day time TV commercials about living with diabetes.

I'm not annoyed about the possibility of blindness, kidney failure or any other dramatic complications from a lifetime of diabetes. I just would like to have a simple piece of electronics work so I can take care of myself.

The meter I'm using is the only one that talks to my insulin pump via RF so that I don't have to manually enter blood sugar readings. There are "known issues" with it being flaky like this but no known solutions. I can't buy another meter from a local store because it's specialized. I asked for one in December as another backup from Liberty medical, but they lost my request (damn you Wilford Brimley!). They are replacing this model with a new meter made by another company but it's not released yet and there's no known release date other than "spring". So I'm just stuck (literally) poking my fingers over and over and re-seating the battery and spitting over my left shoulder to try to get an accurate reading.

This is getting old.