US glucose strips in a Canadian glucose meter?

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cindasana

Member Since 2014
So I've got a question that I'm hoping someone might know the answer to...

We're in Ontario, Canada, and bought our FreeStyle Lite glucose meter up here. The price of the FreeStyle glucose strips are half the price on Amazon.com than they are in the stores here, so I would obviously love to buy them there. Only issue is/might be that the Amazon strips measure in mg/dL, whereas my meter gives readings in mmol/L. If I use the American strips, will it make a difference? I don't mind doing the conversion for the software we're using, but just want to make sure that they'll work (or know that they won't) before committing to buying them.

Anyone? :)
 
We have found that some meters with 'Free' in the name don't do as well detecting high numbers in cats. That is, the numbers are falsely low.

... so you may actually want a different meter.
 
Well that's bad news. :( Now, just so I'm clear, when someone refers to "high numbers", does that mean numbers above a certain value, or something different?
 
cindasana said:
Well that's bad news. :( Now, just so I'm clear, when someone refers to "high numbers", does that mean numbers above a certain value, or something different?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's the higher range of blood glucose numbers. I think the Freestyle Lite reads high blood glucose numbers as being lower than they are. I seem to remember that someone here a while back thought their cat wasn't going above 15 - 16 (270 - 288), but they tried a different meter and got a shock to find that the blood glucose was considerably higher than that.
I think it reads more accurately in the lower blood glucose range.

You could do a 'search' for Freestyle Lite in the box on upper right of the page, and see what comes up...?

Eliz
 
Thank you, Eliz! Between that and the information in the other thread I started, maybe I will stick with the FreeStyle for now (though I will do a search on the forum!), as his levels are reading pretty low (5 hrs post food & insulin he is sitting at 5.3mmol/L, if the meter is to be believed). Thanks for your reply! :smile:
 
Thanks for the idea, Debby. :) Unfortunately, the owner's manual doesn't mention anything about switching to mg/dL, so I'm guessing it's not an option. :-/
 
Contact the company; the manual may assume it will be used where it is sold and you won't need to change anything.
 
Strips are not country specific. As long as they are for that model meter it does not make any difference where they come from. The meter settings determine if they read out in mmol/L or 110 mg/dL. Like the setting on some digital thermometers F or C.
 
As per my other post I mentioned the contour. I used to use the free style lite and it was giving me a false sense of security - i thought Tiggys numbers weren't that bad until I got the contour. The freestyle lite underestimates the actual readings.


PS sometimes you can get a meter with strips on ebay (new) and its cheap!
 
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