The blood glucose meter that gives you smiley faces

I’m on the libre detox. After obsessively scanning myself thirty times a day for the past year, I’m going old-school. To celebrate I got a new meter, the Fora Diamond Prima. It came free with two boxes of strips, which makes sense because after buying two boxes you’ve most likely already paid the production cost of the meter. A nice thing with diabetes, if you’re a blood glucose meter manufacturer, is that you’ve got a customer for life.

This is my fourth meter, in addition to the libre reader. The Codefree experience was the most intense. The meter blinked cheerfully in red and green in a manner of Christmas lights that could brighten up the whole neighborhood when blood sugar ran high. The Fora Diamond is more discreet so you don’t risk an epileptic seizure. It gives you happy smiley faces when the blood glucose is in range at 70-128 mg/dl (3.9-7.1 mmol/l), and sad faces when it’s not. I’ve seen people complain about this feature online, and I can see how you would find it disheartening if you spent a lot of time out of the Fora Diamond ideal range. This meter applies strict targets after meals, and I enjoy the quest for happy smileys. It appeals to my inner child and keeps me motivated.

Other features are average daily readings (7-90 days) and high ketones warnings (at above 13.3 mmol/l mind you, so you’d have to be almost dead by the time you figured it out). I also enjoyed reading through the manual, which made the laughable proposal that lancets are for single use only.

The meter comes fully equipped with ten strips, lancets, and a battery (AAA), so you’re all good to go. I like that it uses a single triple-a battery, which is easier to source than the two flat lithium cells that were in my AccuCheck Performa meter. It means that when you run out of batteries on a Saturday night (after ignoring the low battery warnings for days), you can raid the house with some hope of actually finding a spare one in some appliance. It also takes a fraction of the blood to fill the strip, which makes it more user-friendly.

On a final note, you can choose color (white, black, and red) and we all know that a product that comes in multiple colors is better. I highly recommend this meter for other diabetics who enjoy constant AI-feedback on their blood glucose readings. The quest for maximum happy smileys is on!