Diabetes Test Strips

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Greetings,

This post will be about diabetes but not about the disease itself. This post is to make people with this disease aware about the cost of some supplies relating to the monitoring of the blood sugar levels. Mainly the very costly test strips. As anyone with diabetes can tell you, most test strips are costly. If you do not have insurance that pays for these or any retirement health plan and the cost comes out of your own pocket this can be a problem for a lot of people.

A good portion of people that pay for test strips and even the monitors themselves get them locally at either a pharmacy such as Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid just to name a few or one of the Big Box stores such as Wal-Mart. Many older people are not aware that getting test strips thru online companies is much cheaper. In fact in alot of cases the price is half of what is purchased locally.

The best place I have found to get test strips and whom most people think has the cheapest prices on the planet for test strips is on Amazon.com.

A very good example of the difference in prices is I personally use a Accu-Chek monitoring system and Accu-Chek test strips. To purchase these strips for a box of 50 at Wal-Mart for example cost $38. I can purchase the same strip, model & brand on Amazon for $19 per 50.

I have looked at other brands and models of the meters and strips that they need and almost every single brand of strips for all different brands and monitors cost less than half on Amazon.

Now alot of diabetes customers tell me that they have a particular brand & model of meter and some of their test strips can range in price up to $75 to even $100 for a box of 50 or 100. I'm sure that if you look on Amazon you will find them much lower in price. Also as a personal opinion, I would suggest that if you have a monitoring model that uses this costly of a test strip that with the cost of present day monitors being so cheap and some companies almost giving them away for free, that if yours is and older brand & model that you might want to update your present monitor with a newer brand & model that uses a cheaper test strip.

I'm sure that alot of readers on here do not like online buying, or do not have access to the internet for whatever reason but I would strongly suggest that they have some family member, friend or anyone with access to online to check into this for them as this can save any diabetes patient a great deal of money.

I hope this information may be of interest to anyone that has to pay for these supplies out of their own pocket.

Myasthenia Gravis Disease

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Recently I was diagnosed with a rare disease called Myasthenia Gravis. Without going into a lot of personal details, let me just say that it will turn your life up side down very quickly. This disease falls under the MD umbrella of muscular diseases. Below I have tried to describe this disease as easy as I can so that people get the general idea of what it involves. If you have been diagnosed with this disease or know someone that has, I would suggest that they look at some of the very important links relating to this very dibilitating disease.

What is myasthenia gravis?

Myasthenia gravis is a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease characterized by varying degrees of weakness of the skeletal (voluntary) muscles of the body. The name myasthenia gravis, which is Latin and Greek in origin, literally means "grave muscle weakness." With current therapies, however, most cases of myasthenia gravis are not as "grave" as the name implies. In fact, most individuals with myasthenia gravis have a normal life expectancy.

The hallmark of myasthenia gravis is muscle weakness that increases during periods of activity and improves after periods of rest. Certain muscles such as those that control eye and eyelid movement, facial expression, chewing, talking, and swallowing are often, but not always, involved in the disorder. The muscles that control breathing and neck and limb movements may also be affected.

What causes Myasthenia Gravis?

Myasthenia gravis is caused by a defect in the transmission of nerve impulses to muscles. It occurs when normal communication between the nerve and muscle is interrupted at the neuromuscular junction—the place where nerve cells connect with the muscles they control. Normally when impulses travel down the nerve, the nerve endings release a neurotransmitter substance called acetylcholine. Acetylcholine travels from the neuromuscular junction and binds to acetylcholine receptors which are activated and generate a muscle contraction.

In myasthenia gravis, antibodies block, alter, or destroy the receptors for acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction, which prevents the muscle contraction from occurring. These antibodies are produced by the body's own immune system. Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disease because the immune system—which normally protects the body from foreign organisms—mistakenly attacks itself.

There are many government groups, self help support groups and agencies to help with this disease such as The Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America or the Mayo Clinic or MDA as well as a support group that covers many diseases called MDJunction.

This post may not be of interest to you unless you have been diagnosed with this disease or know someone that has, but please follow through on to the links if you have a need for more information about this.

Medical Problems

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Greetings,
Due to current medical conditions and presently in Hamot Medical Center in Erie for treatment, I will not be posting to much for the next couple weeks. I look forward to getting back to adding more to this blog in the near future so please stop back on a daily basis to see what is added. Hope to see you soon.

Gifford Yard Test Video

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I have decided to do a test video to see how it will show up on here. We plan to go to an upcoming event in mid September and I will be taking lots of still pictures and some video which will be added to this site and I want to see if the video will look ok when viewed on here. This video was made using a Cannon PowerShot A1000IS digital & video camera and is just a short 1 minute video of some of our property.


Please feel free to leave any clean comments you have about any video or any other post on this site. Click on the "Comments" selection below each post.

Web Browsers

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While adding more items to this web site today, I noticed that the scrolling "TopStories" and "NASCAR News" tickers to the right of the screen along with the "Amber Alert" might not work depending on which web browser they are viewd with. I use Mozilla Fire Fox as my main web browser and design my site for viewing using it.
More people use Microsoft's Internet Explorer. When viewed using Internet Explorer the tickers I mention seem to work properly. I did notice that the pictures of our home when viewed using Internet Explorer seem to be out of order. These are some of the little "Quirks" of using different web browsers when surfing the internet.

Gifford Home

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This past January we moved from Kane to Gifford. It is on Rte 646 between Bradford & Smethport. Many of our family and friends have not seen our home so I thought I would post a few pictures of the house.

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Starting Back Up

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Thanks for stopping by. I have been away from from this blog for quite some time now. Since I have more free time now and health permitting, I will be adding more to this blog in the near future.
This blog use to be based out of Kane, PA but has recently moved in January 2010 to the Gifford, PA. area. Not much distance and really nothing much has changed other than our address. Due to recent illnesses in the past two years there hasn't been much time for computers.
Please stop by in the future to see what's coming next. In the mean time please view some of the past posts I've put on here and check in the "Archive" of older posts on here. You might find some items of interest to you.
Also as a point of interest, on all my posts listed on this web site. You will notice that certain words are underlined or different colored in each of the posts. These are "Links" to that particular word(s) and when you click on them, they will bring up web sites relating to that word or area of interest. This can be of great help so that you can see other web sites that relate or be of interest to that post.