CoaguChek XS Errors

[pellicle]

Hi

No, it's really not a big deal. It's too bad that many medical professionals are stuck thinking that all their patients are too damned stupid to do their own testing,

well in their defence one of my mates is a Pharmacist (runs his own small shop) and I have others who are pathologists and various other technical medical people. All report pretty much the same thing. Most people are too dam stupid to do their own monitoring.

When you see stupid day in and day out it must be hard to remember and consider the 10 or so percent which represents those who would actually go further and join a forum and ask questions.

 

[Protimenow]

You make a good point. I've been associating with people who are part of the 10 percent that you mention, and it's been quite a while since I've had much contact with the other 'stupid' majority. OTOH -- there are a lot more diabetics who have somehow mastered the process of putting a strip into a meter and getting a drop of blood.

Depending on the INR meter that is being used, INR self-testing isn't all that much more difficult (of course, there IS the issue of getting that bigger drop and getting it onto the strip within fifteen seconds). Of course, intelligence isn't the only issue - there's fine motor dexterity issues (can a person with the 'shakes' physically transfer the drop?, for example), but I think that there's still an unnecessarily strong bias against MOST INR self-testing.

This still supports my dream of having inexpensive (or free for those who can't afford it) centers for testing so that ANYONE who takes warfarin can be tested weekly. Although at this point I don't think that it's possible to calculate the number of people who may have avoided stroke or significant bleeding issues if they had monitored their INRs more frequently, I'm sure that, overall, the reduced costs for this type care for avoidable 'problems' could pay for the more frequent testing.