Glucose meters

I just found out my cat is diabetic about two months ago.....the vet convinced me that I needed to but the Alpha Trak Glucose Meter.....this meter was very pricey and now I need to buy the testing strips that are $82 at the vets office. PLEASE HELP! I am new to this and need to know if there is another meter I can buy out there that works for felines...ones that the testing strips are not so expensive..I am counting my pennies these days.

 

Hi there, welcome to the FDMB!

For meters, if you are in the U.S, one of the most reliable and many here use, is the Relion meter, available at Walmart and online. This meter will run u between $9 - $12 and strips about $20 for 50.

Others will be along to offer other suggestions too!

Take a look at this link about meter comparisons as a guide:

http://docs.google.com/View?docID=dd5ck ... on=_latest

Hometesting links how to:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=287

 

Thank you so much! I will buy the reli on tomorrow...this is all so overwhelming! I really wish the vet could have told me that human meters work just as well as animal meters...It would have saved me so much money! I just joined this site and I love it already! Thank you for your advice!

 

If u go with Relion, there is the Relion Ultima with matching strips and the Relion Micro with it's own strips, so just make sure you get the right strips to go with the meter.

good luck!

 

If you want to keep your AlphaTrak for any reason or pass it along to someone else, know that you can get the strips via Amazon for $51 for a 50-count box. This is still more than many other meters' strips, but way less than what you were paying the vet.

 

I used the Reli On for myself when I was pregnant, lol. I was planning on getting one for kitty tomorrow. Good to see it's reccomended.

 

To Tara and Nick.....do you use the Alpha Trak? I did not realize you can get them for $51...that is actually much better than the $80 the vet was charging....but I wonder if it would be more cost effective to get the Reli On meter and then I only pay like $22......just wondering how you felt about the Alpha Trak ....if you thought it is easier to use or actually worth the money?

 

I'm perfectly happy with the Alpha Trak, but also because I don't test quite as frequently as those who do tight regulation. If I were doing tight regulation, I would use a Relion or similar. Both the Alpha Trak and the Relion Micro take 0.3µL of blood, which is as small as you can get. However, even if I switch to Relion, I would keep the Alpha Trak on hand for when kitty went pretty low. On the low end of the scale, the Alpha Trak is more accurate (about 30 pts higher) than human meters b/c of the animal calibration. On the higher end of the scale, the difference is less significant.