I am a total newbie at all of this and I'm stressing out. My girl was diagnosed a week ago. Shes been on 1u twice daily of prozinc since Tuesday. I've switched her to a full wet diet of Fancy Feast Classic from the Blue Buffalo dry that she's been on for years. She goes in for her first curve test on Monday. I purchased the relion confirm meter and told my vet of such. She didn't seem thrilled that I got a human meter and told me the numbers are very important for me to do the at home testing and need to be very accurate. She said if they don't match up with hers then I will need to purchase the alphatrek. What do I do or say to her about this? The strips are crazy expensive for that meter... :-/ but I also want accurate dosing for my baby...
My vet was really pushing the Alphatrak too, but someone on this board gave me some good advice. "Are you paying for the test strips or is your vet?" That was the deciding point for me. If you are testing regularly, and especially if you have a hypo event, you can go through a lot of test strips in a short period of time. Between Alphatrak kits and testing supplies, some vets have really soaked some people for a lot of money. At least my vet was nice enough, even though she was really pushing the Alphatrak, to suggest that I buy it on Amazon since it would be way cheaper than buying it from them.
Even if you do decide to go with the Alphatrak, it's good to have the ReliOn confirm as a backup. If you run out of Alphatrak test strips during a hypo you can't just run out and buy more, while many Walmarts are open 24 hours or at least late. Though, there is some recent info on using Freestyle Lite strips in the Alphatrak with good results (
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...-monitor-fslite-human-monitor-updated.135726/ ). Those strips are cheaper and easier to get on short notice.
As far as accuracy of human meters versus the Alphatrak, I think
@BJM says it very well in his
Glucometer Notes. "Comparing a human glucometer to a pet-specific glucometer is like reading temperature in Celsius vs Fahrenheit. Both are correct. You just need to know the reference ranges to interpret what the numbers mean." He also states that "in general, a human glucometer will read 30-40 percent lower than a pet-specific glucometer. At the low end of values, that difference is approximately 18 points. At the high end of the scale, it really doesn't matter. If the test is high, its high and you take the appropriate action based on the insulin you are using."
Much of the information on this site is set up for using human meter numbers; thus, the appropriate conversion from human to cat ranges has already been taken into account. Consider this, if a human meter is reliable enough for a human to use to keep themselves safe it ought to be reliable enough for your cat too. Perhaps your vet could be reminded of that when talking about accuracy of meters.
Also, have you considered doing your own BG curve at home (assuming you're comfortable testing your cat)? The stress from being at the vet often raises a cat's BG numbers significantly making the curve at the vet's far different from one you would get at home. If you can, I'd do your own BG curve at home with your ReliOn confirm. Just do it on whatever day works well for you and will allow you to be at home to do the testing. That should give you a good curve with non-stressed numbers and with the meter that you will be using on an everyday basis. Those are the numbers you really need when testing and getting your cat regulated, not the vet's numbers. Plus, you don't have to pay your vet the extra money to run a curve that you could do more accurately on your own.
One more note, as I've said before on this site, "how much do you really care what your vet personally thinks of you?" You're paying them for their opinion and a service, but that doesn't mean you must absolutely follow every thing they say. That said, it is nice to maintain a good relationship with your vet as they can be very helpful, but remember, there are other vets out there if your current one doesn't work out. (Your vet sounds a bit pushy, but decent so far. At least she's advocating hometesting, which is a very good thing.)
