What would cause this???

[wombat88]

I decided to test Shaikha to be sure she was not getting too high since I'll have to shoot her 1/2 hour early tonight. Her test at +5 was 342. Her +7 reading was 257, which really didn't seem right so I retested. Mind you that while I was scrambling for another strip, I'd managed to hit a gusher, so I had blood dripping everywhere off her poor little ear. I got the strip inserted into my meter, and this time read 516!! That really didn't seem right (or at least I hoped it wasn't). So, I decided to take care of her poor ear and test another one. This time she read 349, which sounded more reasonable. Still, with three completely different readings, I decided to try my other meter (Precision Ultra -- thanks Lori!). This time it was 354. So, I'm guessing that's about where she is, which would make sense given her +5 reading. I'll retest again in 1/2 hour, but the question is this -- what would cause this? Bad meter? Bad strips? Bad blood?

What worries me is that both ears bled like mad. I know that sometimes you just get a gusher, but we didn't do the coagulation panel the other week and now I'm wondering whether we should have. Will have to keep monitoring that and hope her liver values are okay on Friday. I did test her for ketones just in case something was amiss, but they read 0.0, thank goodness!

Any ideas why I'd get such vastly different readings? My usual meter is a Relion and generally it seems on-target. I sometimes will get a low reading or one that seems off, but usually it seems to work just fine. Could the blood have been too old by the time I got the other strips on her ear? It wasn't long, but I was juggling trying to keep blood from going all over. You'd have thought I got a major vein. I felt awful. confused_cat

 

[nancy and payne]

Wendy that sounds terrible ..... but getting a lot of blood once in a while is not unusual, what size lancets are you using? We usually use the 33g but if I'm having problems I will use the bigger one's .... maybe the lancet is too big?

I have found that if the blood is not that moment fresh, it tests off. If Kim were around she could do the 20% variables but I am too tired. I wouldn't worry about it, start again tomorrow. And remember, breathe .....

If you want to get the blood checked, then do it to make you feel better. And yah! for no ketones!

 

[wombat88]

We've been using 30 gauge because I couldn't find the 33's at a decent price. I finally found another source and got a few boxes so I was using up these. They haven't caused any problems though, at least up to now. Her blood seems runny again to me, but we'll retest her Friday and see where we stand. I'll see how we are doing with bleeding when we use bigger needles like for subQ. At one point a few weeks back she was bleeding like mad even with insulin shots, but that seemed to get better as we got her liver values down. Am hoping we are not getting more problems on that score. I was thinking that the blood just wasn't fresh enough, but that still doesn't explain why the initial test was so low. Poor cat! She looked like I was being mean to her. Off to retest and do the last feeding!