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Diabetes Testing

Making Blood Glucose Testing Fun

If you didn’t think that testing your blood glucose could be fun, you probably haven’t tried Bayer Diabetes Care’s new Didget blood glucose meter.

I hope that you aren’t as poor a speller as I am. If so, you might have thought that Bayer named its new meter for the word that we use to denote a finger or a number. Both meanings make sense when we use fingersticks to test the level of our blood. But most people spell that word “digit.”

The Didget is the first blood glucose meter that connects directly to the Nintendo DS and DS Lite gaming systems. Lots of American kids have an Nintendo, but unfortunately I’m not a kid, so I don’t.

Bayer just sent me at no charge their newest meter, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared for sale on March 12. Unaccountably, however, the company forgot to include an Nintendo, so I’m still not having any fun testing my blood.

Bayer’s New Didget Meter

But if you have an Nintendo in your home as well as a child with diabetes, this could be the way to go. It awards points that kids can use to unlock new game levels and customize their gaming experience.

Kids ages 4 to 14 are the target audience. The Didget comes with a full-length Nintendo adventure game, “Knock ‘Em Downs World’s Fair.” You can even use the Didget meter separately without using an Nintendo, if you don’t have one yet. My guess, however, is that this wouldn’t be as much fun. Soon it will also connect to Bayer’s Didget World, a password-protected Web community where kids can create their own page and spend points that they earn when they consistently monitor their levels.

The Didget meter uses Bayer’s Contour test strips and takes just 5-seconds and 0.6 microliters of blood. It is now available for purchase in the United States through CVS.com, Drugstore.com, and Walgreens.com. The suggested retail price is $74.99. If it gets your child to test his or her blood glucose more often, this is cheap fun.

This article is based on an earlier version of my article published by HealthCentral.

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  • sysy morales at

    I agree if this works for a particular child to get them to test more often then hurrrayy!!! testing enough can be a huge challenge for children (I know because I was one of those rebellious ones) and I think that I would have liked this back then 🙂