? Switching meter from AT2 to human meter, recommendations?

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Jessica Taddei

Jessica Taddei

Member Since 2017
I posted over in the general forum and got some great advice about switching from alphatrak2 to a less expensive meter ( the strips are $50 for 50) I'm looking for some advice on which meter you all use when using lantus. Also any additional advice about switching is greatly appreciated!!!
 
@Chris & China covered what you need to know re: Walmart Relion in your earlier post. This is what I would recommend for price, access, and ease of use. Walmart is 24x7 and can ship if you don't have one locally. In terms of ease of use, it requires only a small amount of blood. I use Relion Micro Confirm and will buy another one to keep as a spare (along with spare batteries, and extra strips).

When you do make the switch, please update both your signature and also your spreadsheet to clearly call when readings come from human vs pet meter. The only other thing is to make sure you understand that when using a human meter you have a new "take action" number (50).

Love the name Stinker! I'm assuming you are using SLGS because you are using YA food - also a good thing to add to your signature. :cat:
 
Carol in Chicago said:
Love the name Stinker! I'm assuming you are using SLGS because you are using YA food - also a good thing to add to your signature. :cat:
Click to expand...
Actually I wouldn't say I'm using slgs although that's the goal. He was on ya and at 3 units when I found this forum, he was bouncing badly so we dropped to 2 but last time I posted someone suggested I did not have enough data to start moving. Then of course a dose was missed so I'm waiting a few more cycles to start from the beginning.
 
We are in the same point where you are...after getting valuable advice from the members of this forum and going thru detailed info found online on all available human meters, we'll probably be going for Freestyle Lite (on the positive side: good reviews for the meter itself and using the same small amount of blood sample as the AT2 - on the negative side, the strips are not very cheap).
Seems to us to be the best deal quality/price/blood sample size in Canada (our stores don't carry ReliOn).
Bayer Contour Next has high reviews too - but require the double blood sample size vs. Freestyle & ReliOn.
Check the reviews for them online, not all human meters look very reliable.
Hope this will help - good luck.
 
Thank you! Good luck in your search. The at2 is just much to expensive at this point. I'm going through 50 strips in no time!
 
I use the Relion Prime. The strips are super cheap, 50 for 9 bucks! I started off with the Relion Confirm but the strips were much more so I switched and I have no issues with the meter. In the past, others posted that the meter cuts off on them. Occasionally that happens to me but fortunately not often. I am all about affordability so that I can test as often as I need to and not let cost dictate to me how often.

I think you will like the human meter better as the protocol is written for human meters. Good luck with your decision.
 
Be careful with the Freestyle Lite. It messed up many people here a number of years ago because it gave readings that turned out to be lower than they actually were. As a consequence, people thought their kitties were doing OK, whereas in reality their blood glucose was much too high. I just looked through a group of posts from Jan. & Feb. 2012 and there is lots of discussion about the Freestyle Lite problem there. Do a search for "Freestyle Lite Meter" and click on p. 10 of the pages listed in the search results.
Here is a sample from @Vyktor's Mom:
The freestyle lite meter nearly cost Vyktor his life. He was diagnosed diabetic based on a urine test (the vet was too scared to try and get blood out of him because he is a psychopuss at the vet) and that vet said not to treat. That didn't sit right with me so I did my own research and found the FDMB (yay!) and other information on home testing. Based on my research I went and bought a meter (the FS) and began home testing. According to the FS Vyktor did not go over 200 and so the vet still said not to treat. Again I didn't feel right about that so I went to another vet for a second opinion. This vet also relied on the readings I had from the FS and said not to treat. A week later Vyktor was hospitalised with his life hanging in the balance with DKA. Best as I can work out from the comparison readings I took with his new meter and the FS at a range of BG levels he was actually averaging over 300. I loved the FS for it's tiny drop of blood and ease of use but not if it's going to cost me my baby's life. It may be okay if you have your cat well regulated already (however, based on my double tests, you will see blue when its actually yellow) but should definitely not be used by anyone that is trying to get their cat regulated it would be impossible to follow the tr protocol accurately using that meter. I believe the issue is something to do with changes that Abbot made to the strips about 12 months ago so probably the meter was fine to use before then.

And the following is in a post by @julie & punkin (ga) :
punkin was one of the cats who was number-deceived by the freestyle lite meter - when we got the relion confirm i tested the same drop on both meters. it was 256 on the freestyle and 400 on the confirm. my heart just sank. i'd been thinking he was mostly under 250, we'd taken him to colorado to get the SRT done for his acromegaly, and here was evidence that he'd been higher than i realized, for who knows how long. we'd hoped that the SRT would allow him to go OTJ, but if he's been in 400's when i thought he was in 200's, it might very well have eliminated that chance for him. but . . . i tell myself that i am controlling all that i am able to control, doing the best i can, and that's all anyone can do.

Of course the problem may have been fixed by now, but everyone here at that time decided that it wasn't worth it to stick with a meter that could cause so much confusion and heartache.
 
Ella & Rusty & Stu(GA) said:
Be careful with the Freestyle Lite. It messed up many people here a number of years ago because it gave readings that turned out to be lower than they actually were. As a consequence, people thought their kitties were doing OK, whereas in reality their blood glucose was much too high. I just looked through a group of posts from Jan. & Feb. 2012 and there is lots of discussion about the Freestyle Lite problem there. Do a search for "Freestyle Lite Meter" and click on p. 10 of the pages listed in the search results.
Here is a sample from @Vyktor's Mom:
The freestyle lite meter nearly cost Vyktor his life. He was diagnosed diabetic based on a urine test (the vet was too scared to try and get blood out of him because he is a psychopuss at the vet) and that vet said not to treat. That didn't sit right with me so I did my own research and found the FDMB (yay!) and other information on home testing. Based on my research I went and bought a meter (the FS) and began home testing. According to the FS Vyktor did not go over 200 and so the vet still said not to treat. Again I didn't feel right about that so I went to another vet for a second opinion. This vet also relied on the readings I had from the FS and said not to treat. A week later Vyktor was hospitalised with his life hanging in the balance with DKA. Best as I can work out from the comparison readings I took with his new meter and the FS at a range of BG levels he was actually averaging over 300. I loved the FS for it's tiny drop of blood and ease of use but not if it's going to cost me my baby's life. It may be okay if you have your cat well regulated already (however, based on my double tests, you will see blue when its actually yellow) but should definitely not be used by anyone that is trying to get their cat regulated it would be impossible to follow the tr protocol accurately using that meter. I believe the issue is something to do with changes that Abbot made to the strips about 12 months ago so probably the meter was fine to use before then.

And the following is in a post by @julie & punkin (ga) :
punkin was one of the cats who was number-deceived by the freestyle lite meter - when we got the relion confirm i tested the same drop on both meters. it was 256 on the freestyle and 400 on the confirm. my heart just sank. i'd been thinking he was mostly under 250, we'd taken him to colorado to get the SRT done for his acromegaly, and here was evidence that he'd been higher than i realized, for who knows how long. we'd hoped that the SRT would allow him to go OTJ, but if he's been in 400's when i thought he was in 200's, it might very well have eliminated that chance for him. but . . . i tell myself that i am controlling all that i am able to control, doing the best i can, and that's all anyone can do.

Of course the problem may have been fixed by now, but everyone here at that time decided that it wasn't worth it to stick with a meter that could cause so much confusion and heartache.
Click to expand...
Good to know as mom uses the FS lite meter and I had tried a sample blood on Bubba with it and the relion and the FS measured him about 15 points higher. I will have to try it again in case I ever use her meter ( she has lots of test strips)
 
Ella & Rusty & Stu(GA) said:
Be careful with the Freestyle Lite. It messed up many people here a number of years ago because it gave readings that turned out to be lower than they actually were. As a consequence, people thought their kitties were doing OK, whereas in reality their blood glucose was much too high. I just looked through a group of posts from Jan. & Feb. 2012 and there is lots of discussion about the Freestyle Lite problem there. Do a search for "Freestyle Lite Meter" and click on p. 10 of the pages listed in the search results.
Here is a sample from @Vyktor's Mom:
The freestyle lite meter nearly cost Vyktor his life. He was diagnosed diabetic based on a urine test (the vet was too scared to try and get blood out of him because he is a psychopuss at the vet) and that vet said not to treat. That didn't sit right with me so I did my own research and found the FDMB (yay!) and other information on home testing. Based on my research I went and bought a meter (the FS) and began home testing. According to the FS Vyktor did not go over 200 and so the vet still said not to treat. Again I didn't feel right about that so I went to another vet for a second opinion. This vet also relied on the readings I had from the FS and said not to treat. A week later Vyktor was hospitalised with his life hanging in the balance with DKA. Best as I can work out from the comparison readings I took with his new meter and the FS at a range of BG levels he was actually averaging over 300. I loved the FS for it's tiny drop of blood and ease of use but not if it's going to cost me my baby's life. It may be okay if you have your cat well regulated already (however, based on my double tests, you will see blue when its actually yellow) but should definitely not be used by anyone that is trying to get their cat regulated it would be impossible to follow the tr protocol accurately using that meter. I believe the issue is something to do with changes that Abbot made to the strips about 12 months ago so probably the meter was fine to use before then.

And the following is in a post by @julie & punkin (ga) :
punkin was one of the cats who was number-deceived by the freestyle lite meter - when we got the relion confirm i tested the same drop on both meters. it was 256 on the freestyle and 400 on the confirm. my heart just sank. i'd been thinking he was mostly under 250, we'd taken him to colorado to get the SRT done for his acromegaly, and here was evidence that he'd been higher than i realized, for who knows how long. we'd hoped that the SRT would allow him to go OTJ, but if he's been in 400's when i thought he was in 200's, it might very well have eliminated that chance for him. but . . . i tell myself that i am controlling all that i am able to control, doing the best i can, and that's all anyone can do.

Of course the problem may have been fixed by now, but everyone here at that time decided that it wasn't worth it to stick with a meter that could cause so much confusion and heartache.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the quotes, it's good to know......we intend to run the AT2 and the Freestyle (or any other one we'll get)in parallel for few weeks. We hope that flaw in FS has been fixed since 2012 - as currently FS has the most solid reviews online (Amazon and Walmart).
As far as I've seen on reviews, every brand can be off sometimes , or uses too much blood (Bayer Contour Next) - hence the reason to compare the readings with the AT2 readings first.
Extra, what we are doing now with AT2 is an educated guess - as TR and SLGS are based on human meters - as long as the numbers from 40-200 are accurate on the FS, we are fine with it..
Below I've attached the blood sample size necessary for each human meter(AT2 requires a size of 0.3):
http://main.diabetes.org/dforg/pdfs/archive/2013-cg-blood-glucose-meters_3.pdf

Positives and negatives with every each of them, hoping to make the right decision. :)
 
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Thanks for the chart! The relion seems to need a small amount like at2, the one on there called prime is also 0.3, the others are around 0.5. I think I'm going to go with the relion. I'm lucky that Stinker is a very patient patient :)
 
Jessica Taddei said:
Thanks for the chart! The relion seems to need a small amount like at2, the one on there called prime is also 0.3, the others are around 0.5. I think I'm going to go with the relion. I'm lucky that Stinker is a very patient patient :)
Click to expand...
The Relion meters are : Confirm, Prime, and Micro.
 
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