Pet/human glucometer conversion

[Misterbeesmom]

i have alphatrak but i know a lot of you have human glucometers. Pet glucometers read higher, right? Is there a conversion chart somewhere or a formula i can use so i can better understand other member's results? Thanks

 

[BJM]

Not at this time. At the low end, 50 is roughly equivalent to 68 mg/dL. At the high end, it doesn't matter; its too high. See my signature link for more details.

If you want to collect data from both types of meters for at least 100 observations, I can calculate the approximate relationship between the meters you are using.

 

[MrWorfMen's Mom]

Hi Jen. You are correct that pet meters read higher than human meters. This is because pet meters are programmed to read cat blood which is different from human blood. Most of the glucose in a cat's blood is in the plasma whereas in humans, most is in the red blood cells so while a human meter will read the cat blood, and using the reference numbers on this forum, works just fine, it does calculates a lower glucose level.
As BJM says, there is no conversion table nor is a there a constant % or point difference in the readings. Add to that the 20% +/- variance allowed in all glucometers and trying to convert the numbers becomes that much more complicated if possible at all.

 

[Elizabeth and Bertie]

...And in my experience, with the comparisons that I've done, the Alphatrak doesn't always read higher than my human meter (One Touch Ultra 2). Sometimes it's the other way round. So, maybe yet another reason why there can't be a general conversion figure/percentage/method...?

For the most part though it doesn't really matter. If a number is 'high' it's 'high'. It's only really at low numbers where it matters. So, you need to know what constitutes a low number on whichever meter you're using at the time.
.

 

[MrWorfMen's Mom]

@Elizabeth and Bertie That's interesting Eliz. Were those (human meter higher than pet) readings chance in low, closer to normal ranges? My experience, dual testing with both meter types for the past 10 months is that the lower the numbers the closer the numbers are and I've seen some readings that were very close. With the variance allowance I can certainly see it being possible to have the human meter read higher.