Alpha Trak vs. Relion Meters?

Hello,

Does anyone have any idea how these meters differ in blood glucose points? I am trying to "wean off" the Alpha Trak 2 due to the cost and use the new Relion Confirm I bought yesterday at Walmart. However here is an example of the differences between two different readings:
6 PM last night: Alpha Trak: 190 vs. 133 Relion (same drop of blood) difference is 57 points
12 noon today : Alpha Trak 213 vs. 136 Relion (same drop of blood) difference is 77 points
I would think that the difference between the two meters on the same drop of blood would be almost consistant. Can anyone give me some input here? Can my new Relion be broken?

I appreciate your input.

Sincerely,
Carol, Oreo's Mom

 

At the low end of the scale, the AlphaTrak will read about 30 points higher than the Confirm as it was normed on animal blood.

FDA allows meters to be within 20% or the true value, so to compare, you'll want to do:
example
(AlphaTrak-30, +or- 20%) vs (Confirm +or- 20%)
so
AlphaTrak (190-30) vs. Relion 133
160 vs 133 (raw difference of 27 points
160-20% vs 133+20%
128 vs 159.6
The lower estimate of the Alphatrak is below the upper estimate of the ReliOn, so they may be considered the same.

 

I used to use the original Alpha Trak and am currently using the Relion Micro because we test so infrequently now. (Ruby is OTJ)

A couple of comparison readings...

Alpha 263 - Relion 190
Alpha 212 - Relion 140
Alpha 73 - Relion 31

This was pretty standard for our meters. At the higher numbers there was a wider gap in the readings. In the lower numbers, they tested much closer.

 

Tossed into a spreadsheet to do the math and the results are:
Alpha, raw, adjusted, range; ReliOn, raw, range
Alpha 263 -> 233 -> 186.4 - 279.6; Relion 190 -> 152 - 228 <- overlaps
Alpha 212 -> 182 -> 145.6 - 218.4; Relion 140 -> 112 - 168 <- overlaps
Alpha 73 -> 43 -> 34.4 - 51.6; Relion 31 -> 24.8 - 37.2 <- overlaps

 

Here is a comparison I did last year with AlphaTrak And ReliOn Micro:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?hl= ... utput=html

I noticed that when I started using the AT2, it was a bit higher than my cat trends on AT1, so I did a small round of tests for the AT1 vs AT2 strips:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... WJ4amdCX1E

So I would say (just from my experience) that the AT2 runs even higher than the original AT1 on a consistent basis. That is probably why the difference you are showing is so drastic when comparing ReliOn and AT2.

If I were you, I would use the ReliOn and add 20-30 points when in the blue / green range and see if that matches what you think your cat is with behavior, history, etc.

*edited a bajillion times to try to get links to work....