Which human glucometer to choose?

Hi,
I'm finally ready to switch over to a human glucometer - but I'm worried about all the bad reviews the Relion Confirm and NovaMax Plus have on amazon and even walmart.com - a lot of people say they don't measure correctly compared e.g. to the Bayer Contour. What's your experience?

Ideally I would like to use a meter that only needs 0.3 microliters (I believe Contour needs 0.6) - and could also test for ketones (could be a nice feature - when I test the urine, I'm never 100% that I'm testing Archie's urine clump and not Loretta's).

Do you have any recommendations? Thank you!

 

Also - if anyone wanted to have a look at our spreadsheet, it seems like he's still bouncing around.

 

The strips for the meters that test for both glucose and ketones are as expensive as the AT strips. It's not a bad idea to have one, but I wouldn't use it as my primary meter. A lot of people here use the Relions. I use the Bayer Contour with both of my sugar babies.

 

I have the Accu check Aviva - I don't much like it as I have gone through two already and they die on me at inopportune moments. I have been given a Freestyle Lite meter which I like as, meter variance, tends to read on the lower side and hence nicer numbers. I'm switching over as soon as I have run out of the Accu check strips.

 

Thanks @Juliet and @Tricia Cinco(GA) & Harvey ! Do you know by any chance why the levels for the SLGS and TR methods where never developed for pet meters? I ended up going with the Contour Next.

 

No idea about that one but @Jill & Alex (GA) will know.

 

I don't know either. If I had to guess, I'd say maybe because pet meters carry such a huge expense with them and would make it less likely for people to actually home test.

 

This TR Protocol was created based on a forum study by laypersons from the Diabetes-Katzen Forum. SLGS was created by laypersons here on the FDMB. Both were developed prior to the availability of pet-specific meters for home use. Due to allowable variances in measurement, different methods of reading blood used by meter manufacturers, the differences between meters themselves, and the fact that there's no known way to accurately & specifically "translate" numbers between human and pet-specific meters... to date, changes have not been made to the methods to accommodate the use of pet-specific meters.


Edited to add:
Human meters: Historically, the AccuChek Aviva has been known to yield results closer to lab results than some other meters. The Bayer Contour comes in at a close second. ReliOn/Arkray and Freestyle meters have been known to run lower than some other meters. However, all are pretty darn close in low end of the lower range... where it's most important.

 

Thank you! That's great to know!

 

Agreed. The variance worried me a lot til I knew this.