Meter question

Hi all - question about meters. I used my son's Contour Next meter for the first few tests on Sophie, then bought a Reli-On meter from WalMart. Numbers seem consistent between both, but my question is this: how much "off" is the Reli-On meter from the vet's bloodtest numbers? I know there's a difference (there is on the human side as well) but in your experience, how much is it off (up or down)? Sophie just started insulin this week. I'm in the US in Maryland (will be updating my sig soon). Thanks!

 

Human meters read lower than the actual glucose level for cats. There is no exact formula for how much lower they are than pet meters. I have seen people here say that the difference is higher for higher numbers.

 

Close at low numbers, far at high. So a 50 on a human meter might be a 70 on a pet meter, but a 300 on a human meter could be as high as a 400 on a pet meter. Either one will tell you if your cat is high or low. Normal on a human meter is 50-120 and on a pet meter it's 68-150.

 

Okay - so if I am getting a reading of 150 on a human meter, the actual glucose could be around 200 or higher?

 

Probably 190-200ish range, yeah.

 

I have been using both a Relion Micro and Alphatrak 2 for testing, same drop of blood each time. My numbers are HUGELY different. For example, this morning's AMPS was 455 on Alphatrak and 239 on human meter. Today's +4 numbers are 322 (Alphatrak) and 154 (Relion). When Sweet Pea went low once, the numbers were 87 and 35! So still really not that close! I have no idea what her actual numbers are. It's very frustrating!

 

The AT is going to give you the more accurate result for a cat.