iBG Star: First Impressions could shine brighter

Just like many others across Australia, I received the golden email Friday afternoon, announcing the iBG Star was available for purchase by the public. I hadn't felt this sort of excitement since I was a kid on Christmas eve! I love my iPhone, and use it to do almost everything, so why not test my blood sugar too? Ringing through, their customer service was lovely, everyone was so nice! - I say everyone as I spoke to about four different people! One to answer the phone, one to get my details, one to take payment and another to tell me where to get blood strips.

Then yesterday afternoon there is was! (cue imaginary rays of sun shining down from the heavens complete with music as I picked up the box) I hadn't expected it to arrive so quickly. I tore into it, pulling each item in the box out and laying it on the table. I thought I'd do the 'right' thing and read the instructions carefully... but we all know that gets very boring, very quickly and is a total excitement zapper... besides, the meter itself charged very quickly.

That's about the point where my excitement started to mix with distrust which continued to make me pick a few holes in it though (now this could just be down to the need to read the instruction book properly still). After testing with the control solution, I took my first reading - 20.0! (What?!?). I knew I was high but not that high!! I grabbed my old meter, tested, and was 14.9...pretty substantial difference! So of course this led to me using both meters every time I tested for the next 12 hours. Sore fingers anyone?? The discrepency hasn't happened since that first test...Murphy's law, but I'm happy.

Other things I've noticed / am sorting out!:

• If I exercise I can't stipulate if the blood sugar I took was before or after.
• I can't type in my own notes - i.e. the type of food I've eaten: I can add the number of carbs sure, but I believe food intake related to diabetes management is more than just the number of carbs.
• For blood sugar tests made on the meter when it's not attached to my iPhone, it only records the reading, I can not add the carbs, units etc on the iPhone even after syncing as the reading is 'locked'. So while it works without the iPhone, there's not that much point.
• Ugh!!! just plugged it in to check on the issue above and the app is completely missing! Asking me to install again! I just synced with my computer.... Being Gen Y I'm supposed to be good with technology...

Definitely need to give that instruction manual another proper read. I'll keep you posted on my progress!