Blood glucose monitor question

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Michele M

Michele M

Member Since 2013
Hi all,

I have not been on the boards for a while but Ive been testing my cat's blood glucose for the last 9 months or so. He is extremely bouncy and difficult to regulate as you can see if you look at his chart. Other than the horrible numbers he gets he is in surprisingly good health. Happy, purry, playful.....

I saw the vet last week and while we were there we tested Crushy's BG with both my and his monitors. Mine read 220 and his read 330. So I of course go the lecture that I need a new monitor asap.

thing is I have FIVE different monitors that I tested when I got home and they all said the same thing (I tested them on myself) I have 2 Reli-on minis (these are the ones I use daily) one true track, one Precision Xtra and one Nova Max plus. (I have the Nova Mas and Precision Xtra to test ketones)

So it stands to reason that his monitor is off and not mine right??

Thing is Crushy's lab results came back and his blood tested at 360 from the sample taken at the vet.

How can all 5 of my monitors be off?
do I need to go buy yet ANOTHER monitor??
 
Hi. I's sure there is some stress influence on the number at the vet. I have a (new in box) Bayer Contour Next I would be happy to give you if you would like to try something different. They are good meters.

Betty
 
your not understanding what Im saying Betty

i brought my meter to the vet and we used the exact same blood sample to test.....my meter said 220 while his said 330

Lab results for that same blood sample came back and they were 360

all from the same blood sample

when I got home I tested all 5 of my meters on myself and they all came within 5 points of each other
 
What meter was your vet using? Pet meters do tend to run higher than human meters. Also, under FDA rules, meters can have a variance of up to 20%. That could account for some of the difference you've seen.
 
the vet was using a one touch ultra

I tested mine twice at the vet and got #s within 5 points (one was 220 the other was 227 I think)

according to the lab results my meter was off by 140 points. Thats outside the 20% variance, no? While the Vets was only off by 30 points (he says his meter is consistently off by 20 or 30 pts compared to the lab, and that does fall within the 20 variance.

btw I just now went and bought a one touch ultra and tested Crushy
the one touch tested 315
Reli-on tested 252

I found this post viewtopic.php?f=28&t=117980&p=1237487&hilit=alphatrak#p1237465 on meters....apparently some meters test plasma only and some test plasma plus blood cells. I wonder if this is why....
 
Human meters vs pet meters will generally run about 30 to 40% lower than pet specific meters or vet labs. Its like Fahrenheit vs Celsius - both are 'right', just on a different scale.

Add into that that home glucometers of any sort are allowed to read within 20% of what a lab would get for the species submitted to the FDA and you can see that it will be rare the home human glucometer is going to match the office pet lab equipment results exactly. Its why we use pet-specific reference numbers when using human glucometers on our diabetic cats.

Just pick 1 meter and stick with it. Also use the Secondary Monitoring Tools (ex the 5 Ps) to round out your evaluation of how your cat is doing.
Ex
Drinking less water? Urinating less?
Less ravenous? Weight good, regained, or lost as needed?
Urine glucose/ketones non-detectable?
Playing? Grooming self?
 
BJM said:
Human meters vs pet meters will generally run about 30 to 40% lower than pet specific meters or vet labs. Its like Fahrenheit vs Celsius - both are 'right', just on a different scale.
Click to expand...

ok but my vet's human glucose meter consistently runs closer to the lab values he gets..... I just went to his office and we compared my new onetouch and my relion to his onetouch. We used blood from a non diabetic cat. both the onetouch meters read in the 80s while the relion was in the 50s. We did the test twice on all the meters and got pretty much the same results each time.

So does this mean that the onetouch is closer to a pet calibrated monitors?

I guess it only really matters when you get down into the lower numbers......
 
Exactly. It really only matters at low numbers.
Our reference value for the lowest we want to see on a human glucometer is 50 mg/dL and 80 mg/dL on a pet meter, when doing a Tight Regulation protocol.

Anything over 200 mg/dL is higher than desired, so we look for ways to take corrective action - diet change if possible, treat infections, adjust insulin following our protocol guidelines and so on.

Whenever another condition or treatment need results in increased glucose levels, we adjust the insulin around it. Ex steroid for allergies.
 
None of the meters are "wrong", they are just calibrated differently.

Its always seemed to me that the ReliOns ran a bit lower than the rest. I've seen a lot more cats going off of insulin in the 40s and 50s on the ReliOn than any other meter it seemed. Does it really matter? I personally don't think so. What are you going to do with a 220? What are you going to do with a 330? Should be the same answer. As the numbers get lower, the difference gets narrower, the variance is usually a % not a set number, so the reaction to the meter is usually going to be the same.

We home test to watch trends and react if too high or too low. Those aren't likely going to be off too often because of meter variances.

If it bothers you too much, get the same meter as the vet. The sugar dance is stressful enough without having something else to worry about. With our current foster, the shelter had just bought the Alphtrak2 to start testing because that is what the vet used. I occasionally catch a test with that meter too just so the vet can see the comparison on the meter and see that my meter may be different, but the trend is the same.
 
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