Glucose measuring - having different devices?

[Amanda Guimarães]

Hey,

I have a pet-meter calibrated for feline blood (similar to Alpha treck) and I am happy about it. But I got quite choked with the price of the sticks - 64 Euros per box with 50.

Do you think it´s a silly idea having a human meter for everyday measuring, and this meter for glucose curves? Or is it much better to keep using this device anyway?

I am still not sure if my insurance will cover us or not (long story).

 

[jt and trouble (GA)]

Do you think it´s a silly idea to having a human meter for everyday measuring, and this meter for glucose curves? Or is it much better to keep using this device anyway?

Not silly at all several members do just that

 

[jt and trouble (GA)]

Amanda this site was built around using human meters. We've been going strong since the 90's .
It really boils down to what makes you comfortable.

 

[Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA)]

I would stick to one meter only. Comparing the numbers you get from a pet meter with a human meter is a bit like apples and oranges. You have to pick human or pet. I use human meters but even when I go from ReliOn to freestyle there’s a difference. Doing the curve with a pet meter and the daily tests with a human meter could throw your numbers off

 

[Critter Mom]

A human meter would save €€€s. If your vet won't accept human meter results, you could still use the human meter for everyday testing and reserve the pet meter for curve data to give to your vet.

If running a curve for the vet on the pet meter, you could gather the blood sample on the back of a clean fingernail and test it from there on both meters, give the pet meter series of results to your vet and add the human meter results to Severino's spreadsheet.


Mogs
.

 

[Pookie (GA)]

I have both the AlphaTrak and a human meter. I started out with the AlphaTrak, and still like it a lot. I decided to change to a human meter for 4 reasons:

1. The most important reason to me: As Lola got healthier and she moved into the blue numbers and then the dark green numbers, she was also getting closer to those dangerous bright green numbers. Since all the advice written here is based on readings from a human meter, I didn't want to find myself alone in the middle of the night sometime if there was no one on the board to help me and I had to try to compute "if 68 on an AT = 50 on a human, then 45 on an AT = ??? on a human?" I wanted to be sure that in an emergency I could follow the hypo instructions exactly as written.
2. For me, the strips for the AT2 are not sold locally. The only source is online, which means that if I was in an emergency situation and using a lot of strips all of a sudden, I could easily run out and I would not be able to get additional strips for days. With the human meter, I can get additional strips locally.
3. The cost!!! In order to prepare for emergencies I wanted to have at least 100- 150 strips on hand, just in case. To do so with the AT2 means I would have to spend $100-$150. With the human meter the strips cost $0.18 each. Getting 200 strips cost less than $40 (less than the cost of 1 bottle of 50 AT2 strips).
   
4. The cost of the human meter was ridiculously inexpensive ($9).

So while it seems silly to have 2 meters, I concluded that it was just foolish to stay with the AT2 on a daily basis. If/when I need to do a curve for my vet, I will use the AT2. In the meantime, my vet is fine with me reporting occasional readings using human meter readings.

 

[Hercule's mum]

As pookie, and you I bough an alphatrak first, but quickly moved to human meter. My plan was to use the at2 when sending data into the vet, but I haven't been bothered for a while....