Know your Cat, Know your Meter!

Just a meter message:

I use the Walmart Relion meter.

First reading was 183, but I realized attie moved to soon for the strip to be properly filled, even though the meter went into count down mode a few seconds delayed.

Second reading he did fine with the poke, but "ducked" when I put the meter up. It went into countdown mode fine...but I wasn't sure there really was enough blood. Reading 210.

Normally I'd take that reading and assume we are definitely into a late nadir situation.

I took a third reading to get the 235, which seems much more reasonable than the 183 that had me about to jump out of my skin! I have a shot to do...in a less than an hour now of Lantus insulin!

So my point of posting this is to not only learn about your cat and their reactions, also know the limitations of the meter you are using. Know when it is enough blood, know when the struggle might cause an inconsistency.

Don't be afraid of the meter or constantly doubt the results, but know what can affect the result.

 

you know i was told with humans if you have to poke twice it's best to use a different finger for accurate results becuase with a prick on your finger a lot of white cells and other things rush to that site.
since kitty only has 2 ears, if you need to re poke suggest doing it on other ear.

 

Indeed that is a good suggestion.

 

I used to use the relion micro and would occasionally get a lower number if I didn't get enough blood on the strip. So I would always test again if I got an uncharacteristically low number. My aviva accuchek has never had that problem, but I had to get it replaced becauase it would give me error messages all the time. Never had error problems with my relion. I still don't know what meter I prefer. The relion could be slightly less accurate but there was not nearly as much strip waste with errors.