New here, need help with Benjamin

[benjaminsmommy]

Re: New here, need help with Benjamin

Sorry, but many of us think this is not the best way to adjust insulin dosage. Your vet is thinking Ben will be at his lowest blood glucose level at 1pm, but that may, or may not be true. Some dogs get the insulin working fast and might have their lowest reading only 2-3 hours after the injection, others might not have their lowest reading until shortly before the next meal / injection. That's why we "push" doing a curve - testing at two hour intervals throughout the day for determining adjustments

Craig I do agree doing spot checks is most likely not the best way to regulate insulin. What if he doesn't reach a low at 1pm? The visit before last it was through the roof. To say the least I'm very concerned. The next visit after the 9th he will be having a curve done but the vet wanted to fit in one more spot check because the last one got screwed up.

There are some meters that are better than others. Many have started with the Relion Prime as it takes less blood and is an inexpensive meter. But it does read your dog's blood sugar lower than actual so you'll want to compare it to your vet's reading.

Patty did you use the Relion Prime meter? Did you like it? At the moment something inexpensive would be better for me as the vet bills are just crushing us. Is the OneTouch Ultra a lot closer to your vets readings?

[CraigM]

Re: New here, need help with Benjamin

Craig I do agree doing spot checks is most likely not the best way to regulate insulin. What if he doesn't reach a low at 1pm? The visit before last it was through the roof. To say the least I'm very concerned. The next visit after the 9th he will be having a curve done but the vet wanted to fit in one more spot check because the last one got screwed up.


Patty did you use the Relion Prime meter? Did you like it? At the moment something inexpensive would be better for me as the vet bills are just crushing us. Is the OneTouch Ultra a lot closer to your vets readings?

Ok, I sort of understand , but there could be well over a 100 point spread between high and low. Sounds like you have a healthy skepticism, just be careful

I'm one of the ones that use the Walmart ReliOn Prime, along with an AlphaTrak2. The Prime reads dog blood low, about 30-40 points low at an indicated 100 (as compared to my AlphaTrak2). The difference gets larger as the numbers increase. The main selling point of the Prime to me is the very low cost: about $16 for the meter and 18 cents per test strip. I've been testing 3-4 times a day (sometimes even more often) so low cost strips are important to me.

I see two ways to use the Prime. I could just use / record the indicated number, knowing there is an error. That's not as crazy as it might sound! I would strive to get my lowest indicated reading around 100ish, knowing the error means the true reading would be a safe 140ish. The other way is to use a percentage conversion. Without getting into a lot of detail in this post, I've come up with a mathematical conversion factor of 0.7. I divide the Prime reading by .7 to get a reading close to what my AlphaTrak2 would have indicated. This has worked well for me, but its ideal to have your own AlphaTrak2 to have your own control meter.

I hear the One Touch Ultra gives readings closer to the AlphaTrak2 and might be a simpler solution. The down side is that the test strips cost more and I wouldn't be able to test as frequent as I like.

Craig

ps: late update. I just ordered a One Touch Ultra-2 from Amazon. Meter was $16, but the test strips were still a little spendy at around 60 cents each. Lots of "play" time in Annie's future when we do side-by-side comparisons!

[amydunn19]

Re: New here, need help with Benjamin

I use the One Touch Ultra and my vet also uses it. He feels it is close enough to the Alphatrack to be considered reliable. Maggie had a really low at the vet's office one day that I happened to be there to pick her up. The reading from my One Touch was within five points of the lab blood sugar reading.(not the Alphatrack but his lab) None of the meters are perfect but diabetes is a disease where you could take a series of 10 readings in ten minutes and get ten different results. They would all be close but probably not the same. I try to look at ranges of numbers. I, however, am not the testing guru that Craig is so I defer to him.

The strips for the One Touch Ultra can be bought on eBay for 50 cents or less per strip. Just look at feedback of the seller and expiration dates. Lately, they have been cheaper - I think it is a supply and demand issue.

JMO, but testing is something that seems like an imperfect process but it will teach you to recognize trends and behaviors in your dog. Generally, you will test more in the beginning and less later once things level out a little. I test Maggie three times a day but she tends to have crazy drops at times for no explicable reason.

[Patty]

Re: New here, need help with Benjamin

I used the OneTouch UltraSmart meter because it was give to me free . But recommend the OneTouch Ultra2 because it's cheaper and I never used all the bells and whistles the UltraSmart had. My meter ran about 28 points low in ranges of 70s and below and about 47 points low in mid and higher ranges.

I got my test strips off of ebay. I paid 47 cents a strip for them including shipping. But was patient in bidding and sticking to my price. (watch for factory sealed boxes and good expiration dates though).

I did try the Relion Micro and while it was off around 80 points on the low side it was pretty consistent, which is what I look for in a meter.

I'd look to Craig's post and others that use the Prime quite a bit for comparison.