Diabetes, perhaps more so than any other serious disorder, involves continuous patient involvement. Not only must the diabetes patient continuously monitor their diet and exercise regimen, but they must also learn to use various diabetic medical supplies to monitor and control their disease. While the physician will often provide or recommend diabetic medical supplies, in the end it is the patient who is ultimately responsible for picking the best diabetic medical supplies for their condition. This article provides a brief overview of some of the more common diabetic medical supplies and the best techniques to select among them.

Of course, the most commonly required form of diabetic medical supplies is the testing kit.  The key to diabetes is to be constantly aware of the patient’s blood sugar levels so that diet, exercise, and/or supplemental insulin doses can be kept within optimum levels. When looking for diabetic medical supplies of this sort, you must consider the accuracy and speed of the glucose meter, the method and intrusiveness of the blood collection method (if you are going to have to draw blood several times a day, it might as well be as pain free as possible) and, if necessary, whether the meter can store key glucose levels in order to build a daily glucose level baseline. This last option is useful for those who are considering using a wearable insulin pump.

Syringes are necessary diabetic medical supplies for those who most take external insulin supplements. When searching for this kind of diabetic medical supplies, you must consider both the gauge and the barrel size of the syringe. The gauge of the syringe is a measure of the thinness of the needle. A higher gauge means a thinner needle.  The highest gauge diabetic medical supplies used in diabetes treatment are 31 gauge syringes. The barrel size is a measure of the medication carrying capacity of the syringe. Patients who are searching for syringes should try to find a barrel size that is just big enough to hold the volume of the largest insulin dose that they regularly take.

The most advanced type of diabetic medical supplies that are commonly used are the class of diabetic medical supplies known as insulin pumps. Insulin pumps are small injectors coupled to a micro controller that serve to inject small amounts of insulin through a catheter at regular periods. Using automated insulin delivery system diabetic medical supplies requires close monitoring of blood glucose levels since the insulin pump must be programmed to be able to deliver both basil doses as well as compensatory insulin doses after meals and snacks.

The future of diabetic medical supplies is the so called closed loop insulin pump. This is an insulin pump that automatically monitors blood glucose levels and releases insulin in response. This is very close to the diabetic dream of an effective artificial pancreas.