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Ketones - blood monitor

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

Adrienne

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Hi

I have seen a few messages on threads recently and am amazed that some people still use urine to test ketones.

A friend of mine locally even told me she had found out something brilliant, something new on the market. She told me she had found out there was a blood ketone monitor. Just goes to show how c**p our local teams are.

This monitor has been out a long while now. Most of my friends on the email group use them. It is the Optium Xceed. It is a blood sugar level moniter as well and you just get ketone sticks from the GP on script as well as normal test strips.

I know some people on here probably use them but I think everyone should have one of these meters.

I rang the company the other day and blagged one for free for another friend of mine. They make their money on test strips after all !
 
Didn't I read that the blood strips are about ?10 each but the pee strips are ?5 for 50? I'm guessing that might have something to do with why our doctors etc. don't automatically prescribe them!😱

Thing with the pee sticks though is that they expire after 6 months - do the blood ones last longer? Essentially, I have used 2 strips out of my now-expired pot - therefore that works out at ?2.50 per strip - so the saving isn't as great as it first seems.
 
so once they have ran over the 6 month are they not effective Northener?
 
steff09 said:
so once they have ran over the 6 month are they not effective Northener?
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They may still be OK, but not guaranteed, like anything with an expiry date, I suppose. And you don't really want to be risking potential DKA on maybes!😱
 
id love an optimum exceed! Its something to ask whenever i get to see a specialist.

I hate the pee sticks. I find they dont actually work!
 
blimey ive used 5 out of the tube i got in april. such a waste but the fivva i paid aint such a hardship to pay out again like you say better safe then sorry
 
Northerner said:
Thing with the pee sticks though is that they expire after 6 months - do the blood ones last longer?
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The strips for the meter are individually sealed, so they last much longer (the ones I have at the moment expire September next year, and I've had them for a while.

On my DAFNE course the DSN gave us all one of these free, because they're so much quicker and easier to use - especially when you're ill and you want to check much more frequently!
 
randomange said:
The strips for the meter are individually sealed, so they last much longer (the ones I have at the moment expire September next year, and I've had them for a while.

On my DAFNE course the DSN gave us all one of these free, because they're so much quicker and easier to use - especially when you're ill and you want to check much more frequently!
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Excellent, this is a good DSN.

Cost shouldn't come into this for us. We are patients, we are entitled to blood ketone sticks, it is up to the GP's to rob Peter to pay Paul or whatever they do.
 
I know at my local hospital the Xceed is the first meter to be given to newly diagnosed type 1's, and anyone who goes in with DKA is given one if they don't already have one and are encouraged to test for blood ketones.

Mine kept me out of hospital on one occasion when my GP wanted me to go to hospital because my blood sugars were HI but because my blood ketones were 0 I didn't have to go.
 
Sorry, but costs DO come into it. Since the start of the NHS in the UK in 1948, we have socialist health system, basically free at the point of need, not based on ability to pay, and as such the system has to work "the greatest good for the greatest number" See http://www.nhshistory.net/shorthistory.htm for information about the set up of the NHS. Personally, I've never used a ketone testing stick on myself, whether blood or urine, as I've never needed to - if my blood glucose is high, I correct anyway. But if other people find them essential to their management of their diabetes, then fine, they should be prescribed. I don't think blood glucose test sticks should be routinely issued to everyone with diabetes, though.
When working in various NHS and military hospitals and health research units, I have used urine testing sticks, including checking for ketones - a pot of 50 sticks gets used up fairly quickly when used to test urine produced by several people each day.

I like Sofaraway's report of blood ketone testing sticks keeping her OUT of hospital - but I've never given my GP the chance to know my blood glucose results, not that they've ever asked!
 
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My son uses an optium xceed meter but our surgery will not fund the ketone blood strips so we have to use the urine strips which he dislikes. We were given a sample box of the blood strips so i know how good they are. :(

But I have to say that we thought the urine sticks didn't work anyway as they never seemed to change colour but ,a couple of weeks he was 25.4 🙂eek🙂 so he pee'd on a stick and it went deep purple! So they do work i guess.

Also I undertand that the urine test strips detect starvation ketones which are not dangerous like the other ketones but the urines strips cannot detect the difference, whereas the blood ketone strips only show the bad ketones. Clever eh!

:(
 
If anyone wants an xceed I would say just go to boots and get one, they are sooo cheap.
 
Copepod said:
Sorry, but costs DO come into it. Since the start of the NHS in the UK in 1948, we have socialist health system, basically free at the point of need, not based on ability to pay, and as such the system has to work "the greatest good for the greatest number" See http://www.nhshistory.net/shorthistory.htm for information about the set up of the NHS. Personally, I've never used a ketone testing stick on myself, whether blood or urine, as I've never needed to - if my blood glucose is high, I correct anyway. But if other people find them essential to their management of their diabetes, then fine, they should be prescribed. I don't think blood glucose test sticks should be routinely issued to everyone with diabetes, though.
When working in various NHS and military hospitals and health research units, I have used urine testing sticks, including checking for ketones - a pot of 50 sticks gets used up fairly quickly when used to test urine produced by several people each day.

I like Sofaraway's report of blood ketone testing sticks keeping her OUT of hospital - but I've never given my GP the chance to know my blood glucose results, not that they've ever asked!
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Sorry can't agree with that at all. I can only speak on my experience and what I have heard from the other parents out there and there's a lot of them.

We can't worry about costs when our children have very high levels and we need to get them to pee on a stick, just ain't gonna happen in most cases. We need those monitors for kids. I do not give a monkeys how much the sticks cost if it is going to help my child.

This again seems like a postcode lottery or indeed whether you have a team on the ball or not. Our team didn't even seem to know about these meters !!!
 
Adrienne, I'm not sure there's as much disagreement as you think - note my sentence "But if other people find them essential to their management of their diabetes, then fine, they should be prescribed." Remember that the NHS doesn't set the prices, the meter companies do, although a large purchaser does have considerable power. To win an argument, you need to know how your "enemy", in this case NHS, thinks, which is why I mention "greatest good for the greatest number".
 
i have one of these meters tucked away somewhere - as it's been said, my dr ummmed and ahhhhed about prescribing them to me so i don't actually have any strips. i have the urine ones which i reeeeeeeally need to look at the expiry date!!
 
katie said:
Utilitarianism, Bentham 😎

I knew my ethics, RS A Level would come in useful at some point.

Ok that wasn't useful, sorry...
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I thought it was a reworking of Mr Spock, 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few':D

Mr_Spock.jpg
 
Jeremy Bentham - greatest good for the greatest number

Fellow utilitarianism sympathisers, Katie and Northerner...
I chose to train as a nurse at UCH because it felt more right at the interview than other hospitals in London, and also because of proximity to Euston and Kings Cross railway stations for trips north. However, I was pleased when I learned about the Jeremy Bentham connection, and the history of foundation, opening up education for non Anglican males, and later to women also.
I honestly prefer to have less good treament / education etc for myself IF it means better treatment / education etc overall for a larger number of people. For example, I would have got more and better O levels if I'd gone to a grammar school rather than a comprehensive, but overall, I reckon education was better for a greater number of people in the area where I went through secondary education, and I made equal numbers of friends among those who would have gone to grammar schools and secondary modern schools.
 
Northerner said:
I thought it was a reworking of Mr Spock, 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few':D
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lol, geek :D

I like to mix up some utilitarianism with some hedonism and aristotle - they all have some good points 😉
 
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