AlphaTRAK 2 Blood Glucose Test Strips, 50 Count

I bought a 2nd hand pet glucose monitor for when I needed one for my bottle kittens. I opened it and the strips were expired by the 10ish years so had to order some immediately. Bought these, the expense is worth it, I just wish they ran deals or coupons for them. The shipping did take a week or so.

These test strips more than pay for themselves. One of my cats is diabetic, and until June 2015, I was home-testing him using a One Touch Ultra Mini glucometer and One Touch test strips.Although the One Touch strips require very little blood, I was going through them at a budget-busting pace because what's ''very little blood'' for a human can be hard to obtain from the outer ear of a cat. On a bad day, I would have to discard perhaps 5 or more test strips because of error messages from the glucometer. At more than $1 a pop, that hurt.These AlphaTrak 2 test strips are amazing in their sensitivity to just a speck of blood. Almost every time I test my cat, I get a BG reading on the first try, using tiny blood samples that wouldn't come close to satisfying the One Touch system. I figure to save hundreds of dollars a year using these, because my cat is on a modified version of Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins' Tight Regulation protocol, and I test him three times a day. (You may want to check out her book, "Your Cat," if you and your vet are having trouble regulating your cat's BG. My cat's fructokinase values have dropped from the 500s to the 300s thanks to her method of overlapping doses. Just be sure to talk to your vet before making any changes.)Bottom line: These are pricey, but you save money because you waste so few of them.Some other reviewers have said you can save even more money and get a good-enough BG reading using Freestyle Lite test strips for humans with your AlphaTrak 2 animal glucometer, if you recalibrate the glucometer with the right numeric code. I hope that works for them, but in my view that introduces an element of uncertainty that I don't want for my animal, given his history of high BG readings. He's doing well now, with his average BG in the low 100s, and I don't want to do anything that might rock that boat. I'm sticking with these.Finally, you can get these cheaper from ADW, on an autoship basis if you want. I do a lot of shopping at Amazon, but I'll go to another source if it helps me stretch my dollars.I have no connection with Abbott Laboratories, ADW, or Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins or her publisher. I just want to help other owners of diabetic animals with hard-to-regulate blood sugar.

Decent price. Some people try various cost saving things like using freestyle strips in the alphatrak or using a human meter and strip, but there is no substitute.the alpha track is about the most accurate way you can test your cat. My vet uses the same meter in the office. Testing your diabetic cat at home is critical. My vet told me ,"don't give him a shot at less than 200" based on the curves I took with the alpha track, I had reason to believe that even at 300, he might drop alarmingly low. Sure enough, on three occasions, I gave him the shot at 306, 290 and 300. All three times he dropped into the 60s. When he was 290, he drops into the 50s. Therefore for ,MY cat, I know the instructions are slightly different. Below 300, he gets no shot. Between 300 and 360, he gets the shot, but I monitor an hour before his minimum, and if he's below 100, begin monitoring every 30 minutes. If he drops to the sixties, I give some glucose or karo syrup and monitor every 15 minutes. So far, I have not needed to take him to the hospital. In fact, this last week, he started being below 300 very often, then below two often, and then suddenly vegan regulation his own blood sugar. It looks like he's going into remission, but we still test before each feeding so we can catch it when slips out of regulation. (and we know it will happen occasionally) the thing to keep in mind is, none of this is possible without accurate readings of blood sugar to avoid hypo incidents, or head them off before they come critical and require emergency vet visits (or just end up killing him) The glucose measurements are of CRITICAL importance. Human strips and meters that some describe as "good enough" are simply not good enough. The information on the animals blood sugar is one of the most important componenrs of treatment.

These strips were a gift given to someone and they love the cost and accuracy.

Easy to use and works with the Alpha 2 tracker