I am going to chuck the Ascensia Contour. The Ascensia Elite XL that I have is awesome, and incredibly accurate. I have tested it dozens of times against the lab machines through work and it is reliably accurate. Unfortunately, it requires a much larger blood sample than the Contour. The OTU requires a sample that is in-between sizes. Since the Contour is a Bayer meter as well, I thought that it would be just as good and have the additional benefit of requiring a mere speck of blood. Not so, it sucks. It seems to read somewhat accurately at really high numbers (300s) but anything under 150, it reads a good 30-50 points lower than the OTU and Elite. I can't say this is true of all Contours or if I have a bum one. I may just get another one and test that one since I'd like to think that Bayer kept up the quality somewhat with their meters!
So, here is my BG reading comparisons. These are all within the past week from animals at work. Most animals were not diabetic and these are all using venous blood. When possible, I compared the BG meters to one of our lab machines called an i-Stat, using it as a gold standard. It measures blood electrolytes, blood gases, and pH. I tested an OTU-2 (the newest version), OTU Mini, Elite, and Contour. Results:
OTU-2/Mini/Elite/Contour/i-Stat
54/59/60/35/X
74/76/75/44/84
76/79/81/X/X
75/78/81/X/93
X/121/108/83/X
143/155/139/116/154
211/229/200/179/X
I actually have a re-designed Contour, a more recent model than the one I was testing, so I am going to bust that one out and continue testing. I'll keep you posted ...
Showing posts with label Ascencia Elite XL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ascencia Elite XL. Show all posts
Friday, June 22, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Major update, BG numbers
Sorry for my week-long hiatus. I am having serious internet connection difficulties :(
This past week was marked by craziness both in numbers and timing. I worked a double shift and then 3 evening shifts, then a day shift, so feeding times and shot times were all messed up. I haven't bothered doing a curve yet because I don't think there is any info to be gained from it since I basically haven't much idea about what's going on in terms of duration and overlap.
As a reminder, the insulin used is Lantus unless otherwise specified. Since that one instance mentioned in my last post of not being able to get the BG, numbers and amounts have been:
Saturday 6/9 PM BG=236, gave 3u
Sunday 6/10 AM BG=234, gave 3u
Then there was a little road bump
Sunday 6/10 PM BG=81. ????
This was +12hrs from the last shot. I waited as long as I could before work and retested: BG was 93. I didn't want him to go without insulin for another 12 hrs while I was at work but I was not comfortable shooting him at that low number. So I hauled his heavy furred self into work with me. His vet was working that day and took the opportunity to check him out and re-do bloodwork. Drumroll please .... EVERYTHING WAS NORMAL. Normal liver values, kidney values, CBC, everything looked terrific. No ketones or glucose in his urine.
Because his urine didn't have any glucose and I'd gotten that low number, his vet recommended that I decrease the lantus. He assured me that trace glucose in the urine was not going to harm the kidneys, at least not quickly enough to be recognized in a feline lifespan. So I decided to pull back. BG that night at work at +16hrs since last shot was 236 and I gave him 2.5u.
I was in a bit of a pickle later because I needed to stay on a 1-2am, 1-2pm schedule and had given him the last shot at +16 which was 6PM. I decided to hold off and wait till 12pm the next day to shoot. This is the beginning of the timing weirdness so I'll start putting in the numbers as +---hrs since the last shot. That means that every time insulin is given, the counting starts at zero. The irregularity of the timing is due to my work.
6/11 +18=436. Gave 1/2 unit R (again, I don't recommend doing this) and 3u lantus. I'm scared of ketones.
6/11 +3=264. This was a spotcheck since I'd given R.
6/12 +12=494, ugh. Another 1/2u R and 3u Lantus. NB: don't wait till +18 to shoot.
6/12 +12=328, 3u
6/12 +11 (I wanted to go to bed early)=83. WTF? Aargh. Set alarm for two hours later.
6/13 +13=236, 2.5u
6/13 +8=318, 2u. I had to leave for work and couldn't wait till +12.
6/13 +15=310, 1.5u because of next day's shooting schedule
6/14 +8=348, 1.5u
Now I admittedly was totally goofy with my timing, but wanted to be sure that all the jumping was due to my being a bad cat-mom and not because my meter was wonky. I'd had it since my last diabetic kitty, it's an Ascencia Elite XL. I also have a Contour meter so hereafter I'm using both to try to get a read on what's going on. So there are now two BG readings, the first is Elite, the second is the Contour.
6/14 +12=341/401, 2.5u
6/15 +12=342/395, 2.5u
6/15 +16=317/338, 2.5u
The Contour needs much less blood than the Elite, so Saturday afternoon I was only able to get a speck out of him and used the Contour only. 6/16 +13=296 on Contour. Gave 2.5u.
I'm trying to stick to the 2.5u because of his vet's recommendation. I did manage to sneak in two urine readings and they were both positive for glucose (low) and neg for ketones (yay).
This past week was marked by craziness both in numbers and timing. I worked a double shift and then 3 evening shifts, then a day shift, so feeding times and shot times were all messed up. I haven't bothered doing a curve yet because I don't think there is any info to be gained from it since I basically haven't much idea about what's going on in terms of duration and overlap.
As a reminder, the insulin used is Lantus unless otherwise specified. Since that one instance mentioned in my last post of not being able to get the BG, numbers and amounts have been:
Saturday 6/9 PM BG=236, gave 3u
Sunday 6/10 AM BG=234, gave 3u
Then there was a little road bump
Sunday 6/10 PM BG=81. ????
This was +12hrs from the last shot. I waited as long as I could before work and retested: BG was 93. I didn't want him to go without insulin for another 12 hrs while I was at work but I was not comfortable shooting him at that low number. So I hauled his heavy furred self into work with me. His vet was working that day and took the opportunity to check him out and re-do bloodwork. Drumroll please .... EVERYTHING WAS NORMAL. Normal liver values, kidney values, CBC, everything looked terrific. No ketones or glucose in his urine.
Because his urine didn't have any glucose and I'd gotten that low number, his vet recommended that I decrease the lantus. He assured me that trace glucose in the urine was not going to harm the kidneys, at least not quickly enough to be recognized in a feline lifespan. So I decided to pull back. BG that night at work at +16hrs since last shot was 236 and I gave him 2.5u.
I was in a bit of a pickle later because I needed to stay on a 1-2am, 1-2pm schedule and had given him the last shot at +16 which was 6PM. I decided to hold off and wait till 12pm the next day to shoot. This is the beginning of the timing weirdness so I'll start putting in the numbers as +---hrs since the last shot. That means that every time insulin is given, the counting starts at zero. The irregularity of the timing is due to my work.
6/11 +18=436. Gave 1/2 unit R (again, I don't recommend doing this) and 3u lantus. I'm scared of ketones.
6/11 +3=264. This was a spotcheck since I'd given R.
6/12 +12=494, ugh. Another 1/2u R and 3u Lantus. NB: don't wait till +18 to shoot.
6/12 +12=328, 3u
6/12 +11 (I wanted to go to bed early)=83. WTF? Aargh. Set alarm for two hours later.
6/13 +13=236, 2.5u
6/13 +8=318, 2u. I had to leave for work and couldn't wait till +12.
6/13 +15=310, 1.5u because of next day's shooting schedule
6/14 +8=348, 1.5u
Now I admittedly was totally goofy with my timing, but wanted to be sure that all the jumping was due to my being a bad cat-mom and not because my meter was wonky. I'd had it since my last diabetic kitty, it's an Ascencia Elite XL. I also have a Contour meter so hereafter I'm using both to try to get a read on what's going on. So there are now two BG readings, the first is Elite, the second is the Contour.
6/14 +12=341/401, 2.5u
6/15 +12=342/395, 2.5u
6/15 +16=317/338, 2.5u
The Contour needs much less blood than the Elite, so Saturday afternoon I was only able to get a speck out of him and used the Contour only. 6/16 +13=296 on Contour. Gave 2.5u.
I'm trying to stick to the 2.5u because of his vet's recommendation. I did manage to sneak in two urine readings and they were both positive for glucose (low) and neg for ketones (yay).
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