strips spilled out in my zippered case, lots of error messag

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Skunky's Mom

Skunky's Mom

Member Since 2014
Hey all. I thought about posting this in health . . hope it's ok to post here.

I just went to do a test and unzipped my case and my strips were lose. This is a 2 day old pack of 50.
The first stip I used, got an error message. Looked at it and it was clearly damanged.

I then got something like 3 error messages before I got a good test. The error (Relion Prime) is usually the 'not enough blood' error. Now, some of these times there weren't enough blood, but some looked ok. Skunky is getting annoyed and keeps wanting to move when I try to suck up the blood with the strip.

Anyway. . . do y'all think I need to go buy more? I'm low on funds and would rather not. However, as she has been spending lots of time in the 50s and 60s - and is getting annoyed - I don't want to have to do a bunch of extra tests to get a good one, or extra pokes ( - especially in the middle of the night.

It had only been about 90 minutes since the previous test. This could have been my 2 1/2 year old's doing but I doubt it. The case was zipped up and I don't think she can do that. More likely, I didn't snap the cap on tight enough.
My hands may have been ever so slightly damp when I picked them up.
I feel like a moron ohmygod_smile
 
Re: strips spilled out in my zippered case, lots of error me

hard to say. if i were you, i'd probably keep trying to use the ones i had before buying more. but given how she's skating along in green numbers, it would be bad not to have strips when you need them.

i'm not really sure. i'd probably try a couple more and see if they are ok, and if not, go get more.
 
Re: strips spilled out in my zippered case, lots of error me

Perhaps try out several on yourself to see if they are more or less consistent?

Good luck!

Ella & Rusty
 
Re: strips spilled out in my zippered case, lots of error me

Thanks y'all.

Yes, Julie, that's what I was thinking. Maybe I'll go buy some more but keep using the old ones, having some in backup. I mean, I do use them up quickly!
I did want to try some on myself but I have no way to stick me. I tried to freehand it with the lancet but I couldn't get any blood before I wimped out.

I figured using the same lancing device I use on my cat would be foolish.

but maybe not, with a new lancet. I could clean the tip I guess!
 
Re: strips spilled out in my zippered case, lots of error me

I got a big drop of blood for our +11 test, so I managed to run 3 tests on it - before my daughter reached over and wiped it off.

The first one was 59. The second was Error 13, even though it looked like plenty of blood. And the third was 67.
Anytime I do two tests off one drop of blood they are usually several points apart - more like 10, so that is normal. Though every time I've done it before, the second test has been lower.

This is a tangent but - what should I do about those? They are so weird. I usually average them for my spreadsheet.

I'm soaking the lancing pen tip in some vodka and am about to try it on myself (couldn't find the rubbing alcohol!)
 
Re: strips spilled out in my zippered case, lots of error me

Usually it's best to just take the first number you get, but if you DO test again, you can use the average

So if you got 59 and 67 that's an average of 63...you don't worry about the E13 test

You really shouldn't re-use lancets more than a couple times at most. They're super sharp, but to get that way, they're made of super thin metal and it degrades quickly. That can cause them to hurt more when they are used.

A box of 100 new lancets is only about $8

needle-deterioration.jpg
 
Re: strips spilled out in my zippered case, lots of error me

you don't want to reuse the lancets. someone showed pictures on here once of what happens to them each time one is used again. even after the first time, the metal begins to fray and by the 5th time or so, it looked like you'd be sticking one of those medieval barbed balls. they are meant to be one time use only, and of all the expenses with feline diabetes, they are the cheapest part.

one real concern is that while Skunky is looking great, if she doesn't go OTJ and you end up doing this for a while, you really need to prevent scarring. We learned to test on punkin's left ear and managed to scar it badly - enough that it stopped bleeding. scar tissue doesn't have capillaries in it. it's important to prevent scarring so you can keep testing, and to do that, you use a new lancet every time you poke, plus staunch the blood with pressure for at least a few seconds until it stops bleeding.

sounds like the strips that are reading are accurate. i never averaged - just took the first test and accepted it, unless it was a less-than-50 that was out of context - like 400-32 in 2 hrs. while some cats do that, punkin never did, so when i got surprise low numbers i rechecked.
 
Re: strips spilled out in my zippered case, lots of error me

Hmmm. Just tried to test it on myself. Four times, 2 drops of blood. 3 error messages. CRAP. Too late to go to WalMart tonight. I'll make my boyfriend let me use some of the Confirm strips I gave him after our switch.
 
Re: strips spilled out in my zippered case, lots of error me

Thanks.

I didn't mean i was soaking the LANCET in alcohol, but the plastic cap that goes over it, which has some blood spatters. I wanted to get it sanitized before I used it on myself.

I do change the lancet pretty often but not every time, more like once a day. My boyfriend only changes his (for himself) every now and then.
But I will start changing it more often. I used the super fine ones on myself, that came with the meter. DAng it hurt!

She has quite a lot of little bumps on her ear. . I hope that is not scar tissue because we are running out of room!

thanks for the warning. I'll do better!
 
Re: strips spilled out in my zippered case, lots of error me

the bumps are probably scar tissue developing. :sad: are they hard? sorry for the bad news. but at least you've found out now and can change things for the future.
 
Re: strips spilled out in my zippered case, lots of error me

they're not really hard, though they do kinda feel like that second hole in my own ear that grew up but never went away.

Some of them have healed - like, the other day, i thought - cripes, i'm running out of ear space, but now I have more ear space. I think some of them may be scar tissue. One, where I sort of did the center of the ear instead of the tip, is big and seemed kind of painful to her when I pressed it :-(
 
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