Anyone using urine diabetic test strips?

[European Socialist]

Thought I would try them since they are cheap and I'm tired of pricking my finger, but the color matching is most difficult because I'm partially color blind. I need strips that can be read in a different way.

[Dogmudgeon]

1. There are now meters to measure urine glucose and ketone

They tend to be more expensive, but your insurance should pay without complaining if you are color-blind.

If you need to keep ahead of ketoacidosis, there's also a ketone measuring device you blow into; it measures the ketone in your breath.

Best of luck!

--d!

[Warpy]

4. If you're blowing ketones, it's too late

and you should have covered that sugar a long time ago, which you'd know if you checked that blood glucose.

People spill sugar and ketones into their urine at wildly different rates. Some people start spilling sugar with a CBG of 200. Others don't start until it's >600.

That's why we don't use urine tests for glucose in the hospital any more.

[grasswire]

2. how cheap?

I've never used them but I thought they were about fifty cents each. The blood test strips are a buck apiece for me. Highway robbery, IMO. Stinking highway robbery. Some days I use ten of them or so.

[European Socialist]

5. I got a box of 50 for $8.57 on Amazon....

but I'm still searching the internet for a meter that will read them. Maybe they don't sell them retail?

[Warpy]

3. They are notoriously inaccurate even for people with good color vision

because people spill sugar into their urine at widely differing ranges of blood sugar. That's why we don't use them in hospitals any more.

The most accurate way is to stick your finger. There are meters that use so little blood that you can give your fingers a rest and do the puncture on your forearm, thigh, or any other place you can find capillaries.

There really is no substitute for blood glucose. I can tell you, however, that research into a meter that uses light instead of blood is ongoing.

[European Socialist]

7. Thought I would compare blood and urine method and if...

they were similar, use the urine strips most of the time.

[Warpy]

8. Unless you fancy being a blind double amputee on dialysis

don't do it. Stick with the proven method. Really.

[Heddi]

10. I agree with Warpy. I'm an RN, and if I see someone with glucose or ketones in thhe teir urine

I know that despite what they've been telling me, they're not keeping very good track of their blood sugar. Then we get the A1C which shows definitely that their blood glucose hasn't been as tightly controlled as they say they've been doing.

Do the finger sticks. They are *so* much more accurate,and like Warpy said, by the time you have glucose in your urine, you're already past the stage of blood glucose control (i.e., not controlled, so spilling into urine). I agree with her that this method is a surefire way to be a double amputee, chronic kidney failure, dialysis, diabetic retinopathy and a lifetime of weekly hospital visits, poor wound healing, and poor health prognosis solely because of piss poor control of blood sugar.

[rock]

6. Not a good way to go

You need an earlier warning. Stick to the pricking. You could have a pretty high sugar level but the urine test would not show it.

[Celebration]

9. too much lag time between blood and urine levels AND

Urine levels do not track LOWS!!

[Heddi]

11. Excellent point as well

Urine won't show if you're hypOglycemic.

Stick to the lancets. They're widely used because THEY WORK BEST and much better than the urine test.

Show me a hospital that uses urine glucose *solely* as a means of blood glucose monitoring and I'll show you a hospital that pays out more in adverse and sentinel events than they care to admit. its' an antequated system that is not used by hospitals and nurses for a reason...it's not at all an accurate way to test your glucose levels.