W
westie
.
background
- i was the first patient, and still the only one, at the general medical practice i attend to have an inr tester. even my doctor had never seen one before. having said that, the doctors there say they have hundreds of patients taking warfarin and that it is no problem at all. also, the doctors are totally supportive of self monitoring and self dosing. also, they have no problems with my never going to the blood lab, they accept the technology behind these testers
- so on my recent visit to check blood pressure and pulse, i asked my doctor if he had talked to other patients about self monitoring. he said he had talked to quite a few patients about it but all of them had retorted "why should i pay for the home testing machine etc when i can get tested 100% free at the blood lab"! ( in new zealand, all blood testing is 100% free and blood testing collection centres are found in every suburb )
i just can not understand the attitude of these people, self testing/dosing is such a no brainer! maybe they just do not understand the benefits
seems ironic our north american members have to almost crawl over broken glass to self test/dose when we kiwi's can instantly buy them without prescriptions and use them without any medical insurance implications; all inr doseage disasters here are 100% taken care of in free public hospitals. private hospitals do not touch these problems!
background
- i was the first patient, and still the only one, at the general medical practice i attend to have an inr tester. even my doctor had never seen one before. having said that, the doctors there say they have hundreds of patients taking warfarin and that it is no problem at all. also, the doctors are totally supportive of self monitoring and self dosing. also, they have no problems with my never going to the blood lab, they accept the technology behind these testers
- so on my recent visit to check blood pressure and pulse, i asked my doctor if he had talked to other patients about self monitoring. he said he had talked to quite a few patients about it but all of them had retorted "why should i pay for the home testing machine etc when i can get tested 100% free at the blood lab"! ( in new zealand, all blood testing is 100% free and blood testing collection centres are found in every suburb )
i just can not understand the attitude of these people, self testing/dosing is such a no brainer! maybe they just do not understand the benefits
seems ironic our north american members have to almost crawl over broken glass to self test/dose when we kiwi's can instantly buy them without prescriptions and use them without any medical insurance implications; all inr doseage disasters here are 100% taken care of in free public hospitals. private hospitals do not touch these problems!