4/2; Gus AMPS 'HI' New Meter

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bev5477

bev5477

Member Since 2011
GMornin'! Hubbie went off to purchase a new meter for our boy. Gus is much more alert and interactive after getting a significant reduction in his dose last PM (2U). I was able to locate an archived FDMB discussion that dealt with the i-Pet meter. I've been had!!! I'm not too in love with this vet right now. With all the info that I've accumulated over the last couple of days, I feel as if he needs to go to school, too.....not just me. After I get a bit more experience, I will share what I've learned (the hard way) with him. Hopefully, he'll be receptive, resulting in an easier time for future diabetic kitties in his practice. Venting done! Now, on to the collection of real data. Will update Gus's spreadsheet ASAP. Many, many thanks to all my teachers at FDMB.
 
Good luck guys - I know what you mean. I think all of us here have had to educate out vets on Lantus, metes, all of it. Been that way for me too. My vet understands FD ok, but the ins and out so Lantus - no. It's been a learning process for her too. Mine is now very receptive to whatever I bring to them to share.

Good luck with the meter search. There are so many.... Alot here really like the Freestyle Lite - very well received. I have the Maxima, a very simple meter - only thing with it is that it is a discontinued meter. Strips are still available, just hard to find the meter. anyways....

I hope Gus has a good day today - and can come down from that HI reading. Have a great day guys!
 
Hi Bev, Glad you got the new meter. I just looked at your spreadsheet and see that the column for AMPS is missing. It might have gotten erased when you were working on setting up the separating line to start the readings from the new meter. You can easily get it back by going into your spreadsheet, selecting the "File" button in the spreadsheet, and selecting "see revision history".
You will get a list of your revisions. Go back to one that you are sure has the AMPS column and revert to it. You will have to input manually everything you added since that revision, but I am guessing that it will be a very recent revision.

I'm very glad that Gus is acting more normally this morning and I'm sure that you will see progress in his bg numbers soon.

Ella & Rusty
 
good morning, Bev and Gus!!

Binks' vet was so impressed with the info we took in from the FDMB that she now regularly visits the site to learn about FD...
this place is a god-send!

Now, Mr. Gus...can't wait to see you start getting some "feel-Better" numbers!

celi & binks
 
Hi Bev and Gus: I hope the new meter works like a charm and gives you some better numbers. Ann and Michelle might have told you they had a huge fiasco with Infinity meters. It was crazy. We use a One Touch ultra mini....love it but the strips aren't cheap; I get them on ebay in bulk which helps. I also have a backup Contour and I often run it against the OT just to be sure ...there is a little difference between them but not much. I'm sure you'll get to be like most of us who have several meters.
Hope to see better numbers for Gus today.
 
i have a freestyle lite that i really like, but no experience to compare it with. it just takes a tiny bit of blood to work, it also gives you a couple of minutes if you don't have enough, which is long enough to repoke them and sip up more blood. i suspect whatever human meter your DH gets will work fine. Seems like there's some of every kind in use on here.

glad you're plowing your way through it all. the learning curve is steep, i'd assume that's true even for a nurse.
 
After getting his dose cut by almost 50%, Gus is behaving so much better. He looked as if he was on death's door yesterday but, the further he got from his OD, the more improved he acted. It was the first time that I had to trust only myself and what I'd learned, make a decision, and live with the consequences. Big "but" here: if it hadn't been for FDMB, I wouldn't have had any info on which to base a decision. Now, I'll compile #s with the new meter for a while and see if he should be lowered a bit more. This whole process feels entirely different to me with the change in am't of insulin and reliable equipment. The best part is to see Gus up and walking, washing his face, and the beautiful sound of his purr.
 
So glad you're going with a new meter, Bev. I think that will help you tremendously in getting Gus on track! We use the advocate, which is only available online. I wouldn't recommend it to a newbie... it takes a bigger drop of blood. I just use it because i can find the strips very inexpensively on ebay. Our current backup is the Relion, but I'm hoping for some successful bidding on ebay today that will allow me to switch to the freestyle lite as the backup, and maybe even the primary, once I get through all these advocate strips!

I know Sienne points this out to folks as well... it is really a good idea to keep at least a 50 pack of strips as a backup. You never want to have to be running out for strips when your cat is walking the line between beautiful low numbers and hypo. If you decide to go with a meter other than the relion, I'd encourage you to check out American Diabetes Wholesale for strips. They have great prices and very prompt delivery. Also, if you link through Mr. Rebates, you get an additional 8% cashback, which can really add up if you are ordering testing supplies, syringes, etc.! They also give a $5 bonus for signing up, with cashback payments made directly to your paypal account.

Fingers and paws crossed that you'll be seeing much different numbers tonight!!
 
The help that is found here makes things so much easier than being on your own. In pediatrics, when kids are dx with diabetes, they are referred to specialists in endicrinology. We don't deal with the everyday treatment of the disease like dosing or curves. Gus is enjoying feeling a bit better. I'm keeping the dose low for a few days to give him a chance to recover from those 3.5U assaults. Ketones are negative and mood is good.
 
Don't want to alarm anyone nor impugn Abbott and their products, but our singular experience with the Freestyle Lite and the new-style 'butterfly' test strips turned out to be no good at all. It just gave us readings around 250 or so, all the time - month after month (it turned out). Many here may remember the endless 'yellows' from Sooty. Well it wasn't him - it was the meter! When eventually we compared it with a different meter (Relion Confirm) it was miles out. Our very first reading on the SAME blood drop we got 254 on the Freestyle Lite and 401 on the Relion. We nearly had a cow - but subsequent readings on both meters (using the exact same blood drop each time) - confirmed it. For us.

I don't know if this is related to Sooty being Acro, and EXTREMELY insulin-resistant, but the net result was, we were as good as flying blind with that meter. Whatever blood sugars those new-style butterfly test strips measure, was just always somewhere about the same. The only time we got anything different was when we got too small a drop but it still beeped anyway and gave us a silly low number like 190-something. It never registered any of the highs or lows that we now DO get with a different meter.

Our SS shows this, March 19th was the day we found this out for sure if you want to look. We haven't used the Freestyle Lite since. Endless random yellow numbers on the Freestyle Lite / butterfly strips, meaningful Reds, Pinks and yes even Blues on the Relion. Hmmmmm....!
 
Perry --

Take a look at Jazzy and Lucy's condo that Libby posted yesterday. She has not had the same problem nor have others who are using the Freestyle Lite meter. I wonder if your particular meter was the issue.
 
I can't be certain - and I can't prove it but I honestly think it was the 'butterfly' strips. The very same meter gave very different numbers with the old-style Freedom Lite strips (the ones in the Blue Vial) but at the time we were using those it didn't register that it was a cause for concern. We had read about the "improved chemistry" Abbott states the butterfly strips implemented that screens out 25 'substances', so we figured that the new-style butterfly were probably more accurate. man how wrong that was. And it's the strips that actually do all the work - the meter just mostly reports the result. There have been other reports of questionable readings with the butterfly strips. But as I say, this was just our experience and others may differ... but it was enough to make me 'bench' ours as it was clearly completely useless.

Frankly I really really do hope you're right and it really WAS just our individual meter! As I say, I have no wish to impugn Abbbott's products at all -nor cause any kind of false alarm! But I would urge anyone using one to try and get some comparisons, just in case. If it turns out that it was us having one dud meter, then great.
 
interesting observations, Perry. Mine have been totally different, I wonder what's up? I LOVE my Freestyle Lite. I have used 5-6 different meters and this is my favorite. When I first got it I did a few tests to compare it to my Aviva and to my old Freestyle Freedom (both meters on the same blood drop). I didn't do a ton of tests, but enough to convince me that it was reading accurately compared to those meters. The tests were always within 30-40 points, which when numbers are in the 200s is within the meter's error range. I don't think I have tested it against the AlphaTrak yet and that might be interesting to try.

I wonder if your meter was just wrong? I'm sure that is possible, or maybe there is some other reason. Anyway, I'm very happy with my Freestyle Lite but I can see why you wouldn't trust yours.
 
i'm pretty sure mine is working fine. i got it in late february. You can see by punkin's ss we've had results from 36 to 397 and they seem to follow a predictable curve. it also gives you an error reading if you don't have enough blood. i've had that far too many times!!!

sounds like you got a bad meter, or bad batch of strips, perry. good thing you were on your toes and figured it out.

how's Gus doing this morning bev? I should add that you should start a new condo today with his date, name and AMPS.
 
I wish I knew what the issue was with it, I know it can't have be all the strips that were suspect, as we went through many 100s of them. We also have the special test solution and it always came out absolutely spot on in fact I tried it on both the Freestyle Lite and the Relion and they gave the exact same readings; and I also used to test myself on it occasionally and it was defonitely fine (it came out with 80-something, on me, last time I did).

Maybe there is just something about Sooty's blood chemistry that it doesn't cope with, I really don't know...!!

Anyhow I didn't mean to hi-jack Gus's condo, sorry Gus!!!
 
Hi All (and thanks to Gus for hosting this conversation!!)

I got a bit concerned because we switched to the FreeStyle Lite only a couple of weeks ago (from the ReliOn Micro). Not for any real reason, just because everyone seemed to like the FreeStyle Lite so much and we needed a back-up. I just did a test on Rusty--the same large drop of blood with both meters. Result: bg= 102 on both meters (ReliOn Micro; FreeStyle Lite). I like both meters, but think I prefer the FreeStyle Lite because it sips the blood a little faster and you can push the strip back in if you don't have enough blood for the test (if you do it within a minute).

Isn't this fun?

Ella & Rusty
 
I ended up using a relion confirm for several weeks while I was waiting on my freestyle lite transaction to get sorted on ebay. I compared the 2 meters for several tests- they were always quite close. I would bet money your meter was bad...though I don't know what would cause that to happen!
 
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