Health & Wellbeing

The meter, the cuff and the nebuliser in the kitchen drawer:

are what most households are left with once an illness is under control. A glucometer comes as a finger-prick kit with a lancing pen. Blood pressure monitors either wrap a cuff round the upper arm or sit on the wrist. Nebulisers come with a compressor or a mesh head, and pulse oximeters and forehead thermometers have nothing in them that runs out. A walker or shower chair left after a recovery goes under special interest, a breast pump passed on after weaning goes in pre- and postpartum, and an unopened protein tub sits under supplements.

Glucometer strips you can buy in Costa Rica:

decide whether a meter is worth having, because a meter reads only the strip made for it, and two models from the same maker rarely share one. A meter brought home from a trip to the United States may take a strip nobody here stocks, and once its last vial is empty it is a paperweight. Ask for the exact model name, then find that strip locally before you agree a price.

Upper-arm cuff or wrist monitor, compressor or mesh nebuliser:

the cuff has to fit the arm it goes on. Its size range is printed on the cuff itself, and a thick arm needs a larger one, often sold separately. A wrist monitor has to be held level with the heart at every reading, which an older user does not always manage. A compressor nebuliser is loud and needs a socket; a mesh one is quiet and runs on batteries, but the mesh clogs and in time has to be replaced.

Strips, not the glucometer, are where the money goes:

a basic kit with the meter, a first box of strips and lancets costs around ₡12,000 to ₡16,000 new, and a box of 50 strips for a well-known meter is about ₡20,000. Anyone who tests daily empties a box in weeks, so over a year the strips cost many times what the meter did. That is why a used meter on its own fetches only a few thousand colones, and why one with cheap, easy-to-find strips is worth more than a newer model whose strips are dear. An upper-arm monitor keeps its value far better, since nothing in it gets used up.

A used glucometer, its strip vials and the monitor cuff:

start with the strips. Take them only in sealed boxes with months to run before the printed expiry. An opened vial is worthless to the next owner: nobody can say how long the cap was off, and strips spoil in damp air. On the Caribbean side, from Limón down to Puerto Viejo, write off any vial that lived in a bathroom cabinet. Switch the meter on and check that every display segment lights and the strip port is clean. If the seller has control solution, ask them to run a test; the reading should fall inside the range printed on the solution vial. Wrap the monitor’s cuff round your own arm and let it inflate: it should hold pressure without a hiss, and the tube should not be cracked where it enters the cuff. Lancing pens, lancets and nebuliser masks touch blood, skin or breath, so those are bought new however good the device is.

A parent’s monitor and the strip boxes left over:

usually come up for sale when a family sorts through someone’s things, and buyers want to read the expiry dates before they hand over any money. Photograph the device switched on, the model name on its face, and each box with the lot and expiry sharp. Name the strip the meter takes and say whether it is sold in Costa Rica, since that settles most enquiries. Delete the stored readings first: they are somebody’s medical history. Give the cuff size on a monitor and say whether a nebuliser comes with unopened masks, so someone coming in from Turrialba or Pérez Zeledón knows it will suit before setting out.