From:
"April Armstrong Campbell"
Date: 2003-05-30 17:09:05 UTC
Subject: RE: Glucometers
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <BAY1-F81WitnXeRgSrI00012ee4@hotmail.com>
Hi. I work at a vet's and have five ferrets; the glucometer is not as
accurate as lab-tested BGs, but is best used as a reference guide, i think.
My Marley, a documented, confirmed-by-biopsy insulinomic (and showing low
BGs and symptoms again one month post partial pancreatectomy... :{ ) had
a BG so low it wouldn't even register on the glucometer. However, my
perfectly healthy Finnegan and some of my other ferrets had also had "low"
BGs according to the glucometer as well (64, 49, 48), but when the blood was
run at the lab, we got back glucose levels of 94 to 147. (We were checking
just to get a baseline for monitoring and early detection purposes, which is
probably a good idea every 6 months to a year in any ferret ove age 2.)
What we basically use the glucometer for with ferrets is to establish
baselines for a particular patient (i.e. if Finnegan's glucometer BG starts
dropping much below the numbers we're getting now when we do his BGs
in-house with the glucometer, then we'll worry and do further lab testing)
to track over time, and to get a rough idea of glucose levels in animals we
suspect of being insulinomic, etc. But if there is a question, we always
send a BG to the lab. The glucometer just isn't reliable enough that I'd
freak out if it gave a low number unless it was, say, so low it didn't
register, or count on it as my only test of blood glucose.... I would count
more on the lab test for accuracy, and use the glucometer as a guide in
general.
My several cents!
-April
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