ABBOTT Rep called me back.

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skybar22

skybar22

Member Since 2010
For those who are interested in following the FS saga, I am going to start this thread and not clutter the condo.
Hope that is okay and let me know if it isn't and will integrate into our daily condo.

Scott house, administrator at Abbott diabetes called me a few minutes ago and we discussed, at length, the FS meter issues. He does not believe it is the meters but something with the stris and that is what he wants me to focus on for now. According to him, the meters are stable, a far as he knows and it would be the strips that would cause such swings in variance. He really wants to get to the bottom of this so he asked me to send him all of the data i have gathered, with lot numbers of the strips. I have anew batch of strips with different lot numbers and i am going to test them as well for him. He said he just doesn't know if it is all strips or certain lot numbers.

I asked him how they test for quality control and he said they test with glucose solutions of varying strengths and then of non-diabetic people to get the normal range accurate. He said there have been some studies done with diabetics but it is harder to get those done so it is not a typical way that they test the accuracy of any of this. Obviously they are not doing any rigorous control studies like they do with medications.

All in all i am satisfied that he will follow through on this and that we will get to the bottom of it.

For those of you who have had FS issues, can you PM me the lot numbers and exp dates on the test strips you were/are using. i will add an addendum to my report with those lot numbers and tell him they come from others who have had similar issues.
 
Great job, Rosalie.

Boy I wish I could send lot numbers to you but I sent mine back....lock, stock, and barrel....meter and strips and ADW took them all.

Good luck and I hope he does get to the bottom of it. I am impressed that he is trying but I do wonder about testing on non-diabetics who would not have the fluctuations or high numbers that diabetics would....
Maybe this is oversimplification but one wouldn't test the efficacy of a headache medicine using people that don't have a headache would they??? ;-) ;-)
 
i don't know if we're getting accurate BG measurements or not - don't have another meter to compare it to, and honestly, don't want to make myself insane trying to figure it out. so i'll post my lot numbers here and see if anyone else is having problems with these lots.

right now i'm using:1171931 exp 2013/02

and my next vial of strips is 1171931 exp 2013/02

i would say that punkin's numbers haven't changed in consistency with the most recent lot - ie, there's nothing that says to me that these BG numbers aren't accurate. i've mentioned my DH had a lab BG test last monday and his BG was 104 at home and 114 at the lab, perhaps 45 or so minutes later. to me that seems close enough, although i know your main concern has been at the higher numbers.

lisa & rosalie, would you mind posting your lot numbers here, or at least letting me know if you have strips from this lot, please?

thanks so much for following up on this, rosalie!

eta: i did have a vial of strips that were wonky - high one strip and low the next - that are waiting for me to get a round tuit to send them back to ADW. that vial lot is 1016124 ex 2012/06. i think those were definitely off.
 
Julie, my numbers do not march your lot numbers.

Also, Scott said that they do test on non diabetic people for QC but your husband is not diabetic. His numbers are all in the normal range still though they appear to be high normal.

I do not think you need to stress about this because in Punkin's case, he is coming down in dose as you have said and his progress is amazing. You are waiting to get him down into the green range and he is still on a high dose so you will continue to lower his dose as he progresses. You can definitely afford to wait and see what we find out.

Meanwhile, I won't use your lot numbers since you do not have the same experience and have not noticed the same thing since Punkin was an acro cat and his doses are so hgh.
 
thanks - i will be curious if lisa's lot numbers match either of the 2 lots i had. that last strip batch that i mentioned - they were definitely off. crazy off, but obviously so, not like what you 2 have experienced with it constantly being high, but measuring lower. don't remember exactly what they read, but i got a 24 at one point and retested again immediately and had something in the 80's, i think.
 
julie & punkin said:
thanks - i will be curious if lisa's lot numbers match either of the 2 lots i had. that last strip batch that i mentioned - they were definitely off. crazy off, but obviously so, not like what you 2 have experienced with it constantly being high, but measuring lower. don't remember exactly what they read, but i got a 24 at one point and retested again immediately and had something in the 80's, i think.
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Her lot number doesn't match yours or mine. Both mine and hers are starting with 116 but i am going to test another lot later.
 
not sure what my last lot was since I had recently opened new strips but my open ones are 1033713 exp 6/12 but the last bottle was ordered at the same time as this so I would guess the lots would be similar this bottle below was ordered by itself when I got 2 boxes of A trak strips and my new glucocard 01 meter kit
next is 1165211 exp 12/12
 
So far, the lot numbers that we all find defective begin with 116. Wonder if that has anything to do with it. I have another batch with 117 numbers so I will run some tests on me later with those.
 
actually my lot of 103 are the ones I have been using with the bad numbers :sad: before switching meters the 116 are my un opened box guess I will open the 116 and see what numbers I get with those as well confused_cat
 
Forgot to mention this:

Scott House said that the Relion meters are all made by major manufacturers of other meters, including Abbott and that they are the same exact meters. Abbott's Precision xTra is the same exact meter as Relion Ultima. We knowthat Relion Confirmis made by the Arkray company in Japan so from what he said, the Relion meters should be interchangeable with their repecitive manufacturer's brand name meters. Nice to have that confirmed by him.
 
I contacted Abbott early November about the low readings on their FSL. Absolutely devastated when I compared meters and got much higher readings on my 2 other meters and the vet's meter. I requested control solution. Because of meter issues I requested a frutosamine test from vet and Pinky 's results were poor.

Talked about it here:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=55702

Some additional observations:

The newer FSL strips appear to read lower. (I have older strips as well without the butterfly on them and they read higher. Bought on Amazon they don't wick as well and have more errors. )

I gave ABBOTT (In early November) code 16 and the lot # is 1156842 but I had gone through several containers prior to calling . They were all the same.

Customer service, said I shouldn't use on cat, I said I understood that but my concern was that the same drop of blood was reading very differently on 3 different meters and theirs was very low by comparison. Dosing depended on the readings and I needed Control Solution.

I feel I can use the FSL because I know its 'issues' and during that time period I was always increasing anyway. However, I wouldn't trust it to see me through dosing at the green levels . I would have to double check with another meter as I would not want a repeat of Rosalie's readings that led her to believe her cat was regulated and it was not.

I found the control solution shows the meter is still in the 'normal range' but it is a very low number in the 'normal' range.

I just tested it on me and FSL read 81 and ReliOn 133. This may still be in the range of legitimate variance --I don't know.

I ran across this comment in a research abstract (though they were not referring to the FSL). 'some meters over-read at low glucose concentrations and under-read at high glucose concentrations'. For several of us, FSL certainly seems to under-read at high glucose concentrations.

Elaine and PInky
 
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