Walmart Reli On Confirm monitor question and Vet comments

[barbp]

HI- I have been using the walmart reli On confirm monitor since March 14 2014. Never really thought much about the readings, although I had read (here I think) that the FDA allows an error reading of 20%?

Accidently I poked myself getting the cap off the needle so decided to run a test strip on me. I had just had a blood test from Doctor and was normal blood glucose. Got a reading of 193! Thought of a lot of variables and tested a few days later after I got clawed by one of the cats and this time was 122.

Now tonight I am testing Berkeley and her reading of 384 at 8:44pm was a tad on the low side. I took another sample of blood (from the other ear however) and ran the strip at 8:45pm and got 471. Now these readings are within 20% of each other.

Has anyone else experienced such an issue? Should I purchase a better monitor or there really are none better in the price ranges.

Also a tad bothered by my vet. She is a new hire in the practice and I am likely to make an appointment for Berkeley with another one of the vets (the owner and the other long term one are harder to get appts for.) But the young lady responded to my email questions with a phone call and was most insistent on my using the Bayer keto diastix strips. (Do you test the urine daily?) I told her that I tested twice daily, usually it turned out to be shortly after the shot, if that makes a difference. But when I told her that I was testing the blood glucose and that I wanted to bring my meter in to take a test comparison with the vet office one, she was quite dismissive. She told me the office meter was an animal one? And the one I was using was for people, not to be compared etc. She also was not a fan of go slow-wanting me to raise the lantus one unit every three days of high readings and ditto for three days of no change in readings. Yet she is young (under 35 so must be recently from vet school?).

 

[BJM]

Re: Walmart Reli On Confirm monitor question and Vet comment

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.

We suggest using an inexpensive human glucometer with pet-specific reference numbers. One many of us use is the WalMart Relion Confirm, or Confirm Micro, which is also sold at American Diabetes Wholesale as as the Arkray USA Glucocard 01 or 01 Mini (same manufacturer - Arkray USA). It uses a tiny blood droplet and the cost is significantly lower for test strips (like $0.36 each).

[Glucose reference ranges are unsubstantiated and have been removed by Moderator]

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Examples of using the chart:

Ex. You are a new insulin user and you test your cat before giving insulin. The test is 300. It probably is safe to give insulin.

Ex. You are an established user of Lantus, following the Tight Regulation protocol. You've tested around +5 to +7 to spot the nadir. It is 200 mg/dL. You probably need to increase the dose, following the instructions for the protocol.

Ex. Your cat is acting funny. The eyes are a bit dilated. You are concerned and test the glucose. The number is 35 mg/dL. ACK! The cat may be in a hypoglycemic state. You quickly follow the HYPO protocol linked in the glucose reference values chart. (which we really, really, suggest you print out and post on your refrigerator.)

 

[BJM]

Re: Walmart Reli On Confirm monitor question and Vet comment

Many vets are dismissive, because they've not been provided the information they need in order to understand the human glucometer results. The preceding chart may be helpful.

The AlphaTrak and I-Pet are pet-specific meters. You'll find the meters are quite expensive ($100 or more) and the strips can be more than $1 each. Testing 3-4 times a day, for 30 days, runs you $90-$120 a month, easily. Got that in your budget? If yes, great, go ahead and use them. If, on the other hand, you have other places you'd like to spend some of that money, a human glucometer such as the ReliOn Confirm may be obtained inexpensively and you can do 3 or so tests for the cost of one AlphaTrak strip.

I am collect data on comparison tests of the AlphaTrak vs human glucometer. If you do get that, please let me know the numbers. Thanks.