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Ketone meter

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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Neil.Carson

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
HCP/Researcher
Hi

I have just signed up as a HCP.

I would like to know the percentage of Type 1 diabetics who are issued with a ketone monitor and if this is now routine or is it only after an episode of DKA?
 
Hi Neil and welcome to the forum. 🙂 Can only speak for myself but after diagnosis with DKA I had ketostix, not sure they had home blood ketone meters then but they fell off my prescription years ago. Fast forward 20 odd years and I was given a glucose/ketone meter (Optium Neo) around 6 years ago. Not sure what prompted the DN to issue it. I didn't ask for one and up to that point hadn't really considered it and it wasn't through DKA. They're certainly recommended if you are on a pump.
 
I've had Type 1 for 11 years, nobody has ever mentioned the need for a ketone meter, either when I was being seen at the hospital, or at my GP surgery where I'm currently seen, ( and I haven't ever felt the need for one, perhaps I've been lucky).
 
Matt Cycle said:
Hi Neil and welcome to the forum. 🙂 Can only speak for myself but after diagnosis with DKA I had ketostix, not sure they had home blood ketone meters then but they fell off my prescription years ago. Fast forward 20 odd years and I was given a glucose/ketone meter (Optium Neo) around 6 years ago. Not sure what prompted the DN to issue it. I didn't ask for one and up to that point hadn't really considered it and it wasn't through DKA. They're certainly recommended if you are on a pump.
Click to expand...
Interesting Matt.
I have had ketostix but never had blood ketone tester. I was talking to a paeds registrar the other day, and she was surprised that I was still using urine testing for ketones. They stopped diong other on the wards a long time ago.
 
Far from routine - I've never been issued with one by my own Diabetes clinic and only very very occasionally felt I needed one since 1972.

However in a different hospital exactly 12 months ago with a broken patella - boy oh boy I needed one - my Ward didn't have one so had to go and borrow one off a different Ward and they got their DSN in to see me, and she issued me with one. I haven't been able to request my GP to put the strips on repeat yet though because MY hospital tell me to use the 'card inside the box' and there isn't one! I'll have to take it (the meter and the box & leaflets) with me next time I go to the clinic in Dec, to find out how to proceed, as I'm now not sure. The strips are still in date though so it's not an immediate concern. The younger DSN at my hospital did tell me they are now routinely issued as an adjunct to pumps in June but this was certainly not the case when I had my first one, and it was never mentioned when I had my replacement a few years ago either.

They and the strips are VERY expensive - hence why they only come in boxes of 10 and are individually foil wrapped to try and avoid wastage of course.

Question to you - are they still training you to call 'ordinary' BG strips 'BM strips' - if so - why?
 
I was given some ketostix when first diagnosed but also some ketone strips for my optium neo.
 
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