Almost every time a diabetic patient goes to the pharmacy to pick up their medications they also grab a pack of testing strips. They run through them like water. The problem is that there are no methods of creating reusable glucose testing strips yet. Every testing strip is to be used only once lest there be contamination from one test to the next. This burden is great and it is placed on the patient. Sometimes patients can get a monitor and some strip from their physician, but how often can you rely on drug representatives giving your physician your yearly supply of testing strips? It can become very expensive. This expense is not including the gym costs, for exercising, or the medication costs. It does not even include your co-pay costs, if you have insurance. You would be harming yourself, and doing a disservice to your family if you tested yourself less often. It would harm you in both the long run and the short run. You can have acute problems with improper monitoring in the short run, and in the long term you will develop more strong symptoms of things like neuropathy and loss of feeling in your peripheral extremities. Remember that your physician’s office gets free monitors to give to you. Just ask them for it.