Help I'm confused..... New Meter readings are weird

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Jan Radar (GA)

Jan Radar (GA)

Member Since 2015
It's been a very busy and kinda expensive week at my house....:blackeye: While trying to reallocate funds from AlphaTrax test strips to Lantus I went to Walmart and purchased a ReliOn micro meter and the cheaper test strips. The first thing that confused me was that there was no control solution in the box so I went back to Walmart... They can order it but it won't be in for several days :confused: The directions say "no coding" required so I pressed on, collected the cat and used the new meter along side the AlphaTrax2. Yes, the same droplet was used for both meters. so I got 327 on the AlphaTrax and 325 on the ReliOn ??? :confused: What?? I thought there was "about" a +18 difference and there's only 2 here. Later in the day I tested again with both meters. AlphaTrax was 324 and ReliOn was 329. Now it's a difference of 5! ??? :banghead: I don't get it and I really need to keep testing the cat since we are newly back on insulin. Unfortunately, although I tried to think ahead I'm now out of AlphaTrax test strips and don't feel I have trustworthy information from the ReliOn. :(I'm ready to return it and start over. :banghead:

My questions are these: 1. Doesn't the meter have to be calibrated with control solution to make sure it's working properly? 2. is there some sort of setting I'm supposed to put into the ReliOn to use it successfully for the cat? 3. Am I just not understanding how to interpret the numbers on the human meter?? Any help or suggestions will be welcome.
 
Hi Jan, There is no formula to determine the differences in readings between the AT meter and a human meter. While I am a bit surprised to hear your difference was only 2 points and would have expected more, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Your number differences are really only going to matter when you are getting into lower numbers where you need to be more alert for any potential hypo arising and need to steer kitty up. Even the Roomp and Rand document does not provide any details as to where that +18 points came from. Then when you take all meter variances into consideration, you can basically just use that +18 as a rough number because if there were a 20 point difference and kitty was showing hypo symptoms, the number isn't going to matter....you act!

As an AT user, I have grappled with this and am still doing double testing with both the AT and a human meter for my own curiosity but after hundreds of comparisons, there really is no rhyme or reason to the differences that can be summed up in simple math equation... a more complicated one, maybe!?

I'd wait till the control solution gets there and just make sure the meter is functioning properly. In the meantime, if it's reading a bit high, it's better than reading too low!
 
Thank you for your thoughts, Linda. You are correct that the most important time that the numbers matter is when we are on alert for a hypo. I've been in that really scarey hypo world and my meter (and some chocolate) is all that kept me sane as those numbers slowly climbed. Right now Radars numbers are still pretty high as we try to get his system back into those blues. I will try to relax about the specific numerical reading and focus more on the 5Ps to gauge how we are doing.
 
I've heard others recently say that the AT and Micro numbers are close. I've never used the AT so have no feedback there but I can assure you the micro is a good meter.

Call 800 number on strip bottle, they'll send control solution free - it's usually pretty fast too. They don't put it in their boxes as it needs to be fairly fresh. The meter may sit on the shelf for months before it's purchased.

You don't have to code anything - when you put in the strip, an 'F' number will appear. That should match the F number on back of the bottle of strips.
 
All meters in the US are allowed to read within +/-20% of what a lab may get. Some may read within a more narrow range.
So 327 on the AlphaTrax vs 325 on the Relion could be as far apart as 392.4 vs 260.

See my signature link on Human Glucometers.
 
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