Home Testing Questions

[michaelblose]

Hi Everyone,

My questions are regarding home testing meters. I have recently purchased a Relion Micro and have began testing.

Boomer's numbers have been good so far for all the tests I've done. Generally he's around 250-275 just before his shots. When I took him to the vet today we both tested him and compared results. The vets meter is Alphatrack. My meter, the Relion Micro, showed 242 and the vets meter showed 353.

The vet said she had been using a human meter prior to purchasing the Alphatrack a few months ago. I went thru Boomer's record and saw his numbers have always been around 250 just prior to his shot except when we first discovered he was diabetic, which he was 328.

From what I've read I should assume the Relion Micro's read consistently lower than the Alphatrack. Based on your experiences what are your recommendations on the results I got from the vets office today? Thanks for your help.

 

[Hillary & Maui (GA)]

Were the tests taken from the same blood sample?

Typically the Alpha trak reads higher than the human meters. However, I don't think much of the reading. When I started this journey, my vet first forbade me from home testing and then told me if I was going to, then I can only use the alpha track (that they happen to sell), otherwise I will never get accurate readings.

I came on here, asked the questions, and even called Abbott, the makers of Alphatrack and Freestyle. The doctor I spoke with gave me all kinds of reasons why I needed to use the alpha over a human one - however, none of the reasons really were valid.

Here is a link from the old board on this very subject - you may find it helpful:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/phorum5/r ... ?8,1840808

 

[Ruth & Beethoven (GA)]

The link provided by Hillary told you quite a bit, especially the explanation provided by Monique of the reason the human meters tend to give lower readings than the Alpha Trak. When we started on this journey our vet did the same thing yours did—compared the human meter we had with the Alpha Trak—and got higher numbers for Alpha Trak, just as yours did. We decided to buy Alpha Trak and have used it all along. If we had it to do over again, we would probably go with a human meter for the following reasons:

1. Alpha Trak meter costs more. The quality is comparable.
2. Even more of an impact is the higher cost of Alpha Trak test strips. This is an ongoing cost to consider.
3. Alpha Trak test strips are not as readily available as human test strips. We bought ours from Amazon.com so we had to plan ahead.
4. On FDMB most people use human meters so they sometimes forget that Alpha Trak readings shouldn’t be expected to be the same as what you would get from a human meter. Even Dr. Rand notes this in her famous study. She says to allow for about a 30 point difference in the lower range. I’m sure it would be an even greater numerical difference in the upper range.

We briefly tested with two meters (Alpha Trak and Contour) just to see how they compared. The Alpha Trak usually, but not always, gave a higher reading. Even using two identical meters can give different readings though. Human meters are required to be accurate to within +/-20% of a lab test reading of human blood, and Alpha Trak meters are presumed to meet the same standard for animal blood.

Another variable is the location of the test, and I don’t mean the ear. I mean home vs the vet clinic. Many cats stress out at the clinic and their BG goes higher just because they’re there. You’ll likely get more reliable numbers at home where Boomer feels more relaxed.