Perhaps you can go around the VA. If you are 50 or over, you can go to www.libertymedical.com and check on your eligibility for test strips and lancets (3-month supply) for $40. They also provide a new meter that keeps uses less blood.

As to the Metformin, at K-Mart here in Florida, you can get a 3-month supply for $15.00. I hope the K-mart there does this too.

It shouldn't be necessary, since you're under VA care, to use these possibilities.

Good Luck to you.

I may not be a super-hero but I do have an arch-enemy. The Department of Veterans Affairs is my nemisis.

In our most recent confrontation, the evil henchmen have outwitted me once again. Our battle was over a blood glucose monitor. 15 years ago VA doctors said I was a type two diabetic. The VA at the time provided monitors and test strips but I never got the materials. I was in denial about my having the disease so it was no big deal to me. In the last few years, my health went down hill and six months ago I had a triple bypass at the VAMC in Minneapolis.

After the surgery, my blood sugars were all over the place. A Home Health Nurse and a Cardiac Re-Hab nurse both said I should be checking my blood sugars. They asked the VA if I could get one but they did not get an answer. I asked and was told that patients like me who are on oral medication don’t need to be checking their blood sugars. I argued that the heart surgery had screwed up my system and therefore I needed to regulate my sugars more often. I said I was 100% service connected, but that didn’t mean a thing. I said I was 20% service connected for diabetes from Agent Orange, but that didn’t mean a thing, either.

I quoted from the VA guidelines that recommended stable type II diabetics on oral meds check blood sugars twice a week but that didn’t make a difference. I wrote my congressman and asked if he could do anything about the situation. I indicated that the VAMC’s cost cutting measures didn’t allow me to have a glucose monitor and I felt that I should have the equipment since I was service connected for the disease. The VAMC wrote back the congressman and said I was incorrect and that money had nothing to do with the matter. My doctor determined there was no medical need. Okay, my doctor is just following the rules because I think it is about money.

The National Center for Cost Containment which is located in Milwaukee, WI has been tracking diabetes in the VHA since 1994. In 1998, 25% of the average outpatient pharmacy expenditures for each veteran with diabetes averaged $220 a patient. $170 or 73% of all blood sugar control costs could be attributed to monitoring costs. Monitoring costs have increased from 67 dollars in 1994 to 170 dollars in 1998. According to the 1998 National Center for Cost Containment report on diabetes... the question arises as to whether the increased use of blood glucose monitors is warranted...The report goes on to say In order to appropriately allocate resources, providers should think carefully about initiating and maintaining monitoring in veterans with diabetes on oral agents

All right, I am not going to get my blood glucose monitor. I’ll be dead someday anyway and it won’t make much difference. But what really grinds my a** is for the Medical Center Director Steven P. Kleinglass to say money doesn’t have anything to do with how decisions are made. If you read all the stuff about getting good medical care, the professionals say you have to advocate for yourself or your loved one.

Why do I whine about such mundane bull while all hell breaks loose in the world? Because my world is the daily dealings with the likes of the medical center director who are always coming up with excuses or explainations that work against veterans. So do I just take the crap or do I find some way to fight back, knowing in the end I will loss more battles than win.?

This is in response to the articel "Vet questions VA's response to his needs. Dated 8-9-2007.

It is obviouse Mr. Zarete does not understand the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Type 2 is a metabolic syndrome and can usually be avoided by following a healthy diet, exercising regularly and keeping fat off the interior of exterior their bodies. When a body has to much fat the body cannot produce enough insulin to sustain it. Type 1 is an autoimmune disease, which makes it a completely different disease. In type 1 the body for some unknown reason attacks the insulin producing cells killing them off resuling in no insulin production.

We have to take insulin injections in order to survive. If Mr Zarete lost weight, ate properly and exercised he could possibly manage his diabetes without medication. As for his testing, what would he do if he encountered a high reading? It has been proven the testing by most type 2 diabetics is not necessary unless they are on insulin. As for the VA providing more test strips to type 1 diabetics it is because a type 1 must know what their glucose reading is before each meal in order to determine how much insulin to take. We must also test between meals to make sure our glucose has not fallen to low.

With type 1 it is always a balancing act. Everything you do must be thought out and prepared for. You cannot on a whim decide you want to work out for an hour. You have to prepare for it and make sure your glucose level is at a higher level or you will go to low while exercising and possibly pass out.

I have an idea Mr. Zarate ask you doctor to put you on insulin injections and you will be able to get more test strips. I am sure you will enjoy giving yourself four or more injections a day.

A type 1 (aka as juveniale diabetes) diabetic

Wow, what a poorly written article. Who is Melissa Palmer and what does she have to do with a vet's problems with the VA? I know for a fact, that if you contact the local Kingman VA clinic, they will help you. About the test strips, a little research should show that Medicare guidelines also state that Type-II diabetics should receive enough test strips for testing up to 3 times per week. This is not some arbitrary VA rule.

This paper needs to do better research, come on, there is a VA clinic across the street from KRMC, yet you state there is no local help. That's probably news to the clinics three diabetic educatiors.

Stop letting grade school students write your articles and start doing some real newspapering. I feel for my brother Vet and I hope he gets the help he needs.