11/30 - Leo - concerned about Relion meter reading

Status
Not open for further replies.
Susan Shropshire

Susan Shropshire

Member Since 2021
I tried the Relion Premier tonight on Leo and it said his glucose was 80! It's NEVER been 80. So I tested it with the AlphaTrak 2 and it was 327 and I tried once more and it was 289. The discrepancy on the AlphaTrak is within the +/- that we can get but the difference between that 289 and 80! That makes me worry about using the Relion. Has anyone else had this happen? The readings were one after the other starting with the Relion and done on the same ear in almost the same place. The only difference was the meters.
 
Did you do a 2nd test with the ReliOn? Could have been a bad strip, or you didn't get quite enough blood but it threw out a reading anyway instead of an error code
 
FrostD said:
Did you do a 2nd test with the ReliOn? Could have been a bad strip, or you didn't get quite enough blood but it threw out a reading anyway instead of an error code
Click to expand...
I didn't do a 2nd test. I had already poked his ear 3 times and didn't want to do it again. That is the other thing I am not crazy about with the Relion is that it takes a larger drop of blood. The Alphatrak barely needs any and I never have an issue with it quickly beeping and giving me a reading.

I think I may go with using the Freestyle strips in the AlphaTrak since I already have an AlphaTrak 2. I've seen some post on here about using them. I just wonder if it's best to use the freestyle stips or the freestyle lite?

I did find this online: https://glucomart.com/can-use-freestyle-test-strips-alphatrak-meter/ It talks about the freestyle strips in the Alphatrak meter. The freestyle are about 1/2 of what I pay for the Alphatrak test strips.
 
Susan Shropshire said:
I didn't do a 2nd test. I had already poked his ear 3 times and didn't want to do it again. That is the other thing I am not crazy about with the Relion is that it takes a larger drop of blood. The Alphatrak barely needs any and I never have an issue with it quickly beeping and giving me a reading.

I think I may go with using the Freestyle strips in the AlphaTrak since I already have an AlphaTrak 2. I've seen some post on here about using them. I just wonder if it's best to use the freestyle stips or the freestyle lite?

I did find this online: https://glucomart.com/can-use-freestyle-test-strips-alphatrak-meter/ It talks about the freestyle strips in the Alphatrak meter. The freestyle are about 1/2 of what I pay for the Alphatrak test strips.
Click to expand...
Gotcha. I'd chalk it up to a bad strip or not enough blood, happens to me sometimes. Ive never had an issue getting enough blood, but I suppose the ReliOn is all I've ever known. Except my ketone meter, now THAT thing needs a lot of blood.

I've heard of some people using those strips, I thought the official forum stance was not to do it for some reason. Unfortunately I don't know which strips to use. Are you in the Facebook group? I know I've seen it mentioned there as well
 
FrostD said:
Gotcha. I'd chalk it up to a bad strip or not enough blood, happens to me sometimes. Ive never had an issue getting enough blood, but I suppose the ReliOn is all I've ever known. Except my ketone meter, now THAT thing needs a lot of blood.

I've heard of some people using those strips, I thought the official forum stance was not to do it for some reason. Unfortunately I don't know which strips to use. Are you in the Facebook group? I know I've seen it mentioned there as well
Click to expand...
I am not in the Facebook group? I didn't know there was one.

I found a couple of people online that have done testing using the freestyle lite strips in an alphatrak and its been pretty close (within 30 points). They said definitely use the alphatrak and the test strips and not the freestyle meter and strips because there is a bigger difference in numbers. They also recommend keeping some alphatrak test strips and testing any time you get a new vial of strips since they are not coded like alphatrak. Someone else mentioned using the testing solution with each new vial to get a reading. They said the coding from alphatrak is just that they were batched and tested at that code for the highest accuracy. It said to just leave the last coding # that was in the alphatrak for the freestyle lite strips.
 
tiffmaxee said:
Marje has warned against using anything but the AT strips.
Click to expand...
I would like to know the reason. From what I am seeing online, it seems they run pretty close to alphatrak 2 strips. I found one that said run it coded as 7 or 36 and you will usually get a pretty close number. I will do a couple of side by side test and see what happens. Even the alphatrak 2 will come up different with each test. Case in point was tonight when it was 327 & 289 with back to back test on the Alphatrak 2 using alphatrak 2 strips. That is a 38 point difference.
 
Wendy&Neko said:
Yes! Always best to used test strips made by the manufacturer of the meter, for that meter. The manufacturer of the AT does not recommend using anything else. They do some special tests on the AT strips to figure out how to code them. See post 6 in here: https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/using-fs-strips-in-at-meter.221465/
Click to expand...
The post that I found online said it use the code 7 or 36 and it should be close. I am going to do a little "testing" and see what I find. I will definitely keep the alphatrak 2 strips and see what I get side by side with the freestyle lite strips. I saw several things online where people posted their side by side testing, and it seemed really close. If they were close this would seem the best of both worlds. The pet meter but less expensive strips.
 
The thing about side by side testing, you can't go by what anyone else gets. We've seen differences between members. So only go by what your meter says. Marje did some testing too with an AT.

Our dosing methods are written with human meters in mind.
 
Wendy&Neko said:
The thing about side by side testing, you can't go by what anyone else gets. We've seen differences between members. So only go by what your meter says. Marje did some testing too with an AT.

Our dosing methods are written with human meters in mind.
Click to expand...
I agree. I’m going to try them on Leo and see what I get. I did do a +2.5 on him tonight with the Relion and it was 222 which is close to what I have been getting around that time with the Alphatrak 2 based on his PMPS. I automatically knew that 80 I got at PM was not right.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top