Optium Xceed

Hi, Martinzee, I use a One Touch Ultra with strips on prescription but for out and about, I take an Xceed with me because it's more compact in its wallet. (I pay for the strips myself). Also, the foil wrapping guarantees the strips don't get contaminated by any atmosphere you happen to be in, or fingers even! Doesn't apply to me but being out in a small boat, for example, would mean moist, salty air entering the vials in which strips are commonly supplied. And there are other aggressive environments around.

NOt seen the much-fabled new strips yet. Results in 5 seconds as with the old strips are surely fast enough for anyone, aren't they? It's washing and finger sticking that takes the time. More important to me is what size of blood drop they need because there are times when a decent drop is reluctant to form eg when cold. What is the new drop size? Glad you're happy with your meter!

Regards QRP

Hi, Bluebird and apologies to Martinzee for inadvertently posting my reply to him as a separate item. Thintype2, he may not read your post unless he comes here! Sorry!

Supplier for Xceed strips: I order from http://www.ChemistDirect.co.uk at £21.10 for 50.

Click on 'Health', 'Diabetic Products', 'Meters,Lancet,Strips' which at last gives you a separate button for strips. Quite a puzzle if you don't know how! They are on page 1.

Incidentally, the site offers Xceed meters complete in case for £5.99 and the One Touch Ultra meter for £6.99. Each comes with 10 strips which alone are worth around £4!

Regards QRP

Hi and thanks for comments.

Well, I do get strips on prescription for the One Touch Ultra meter, as previously mentioned. I do 3 premeal and 1 bedtime tests ie 4 a day and 120 a month. When I first became a Type 1 in June 2007, I thought 'they' would baulk at prescibing strips for a second, different meter so decided to use the Xceed for 'out-and-about' at my own expense. I didn't want to provoke a 'beancounting' attitude to my use of strips, even though it's bona fide. I've become aware that getting strips is something of an issue: either they won't allow it for Type 2s or are miserly even for Type 1s. ( But NICE will hopefully resolve all that in April?)

Out and about includes exercise (testing recommended) and driving (testing obligatory). My 30 min walks don't really need it and I only drive locally. So I only use the Xceed when I do need to have a meter with me.

At 8 months in to Type 1 diabetes, I reckon I'm coming out of the honeymoon period. A C-peptides test would soon resolve that but the local 'health care team' haven't ever had one done so I get shrugged off. The time is right now for basal testing which is a strip-hungry - 5 strips per 8 hr test and 3 tests to cover the 24 hr day. Retests, too, if the basal dose isn't right.

Basal testing is a valid and necessary psrt of BG management but my local health care team don't seem to have heard of it! So we'll see what they say when the stip usage balloons! Anyone else out there doing basal testing?

Regards QRP

Hi, all, has anyone any experience of checking one meter against another?

Recently I checked my Optium Xceed against my regular meter, a OneTouch Ultra, and got a surprise.

First off, both meters had good repeat accuracy ie their readings grouped within about 10% - called 'good precision' by the manufacturers.

The Xceed averages out always 10% or thereabouts higher than the OneTouch. Example: 6.7 and 5.9 for OneTouch and 7.3, 7.7, 6.8 and 7.2 for the Xceed.

I reckon this 10% difference wouldn't matter too much if it was always 10% but it's not. Sometimes it's much more as for example these readings: OneTouch - 7.8 and Xceed 10.6, 11.3, 10.8, 12.0 and 11.6. (Quite a nice group, actually)

Just for the record, I was using different fingers to avoid oversqueezing and both meters had just had control solution checks done. Also, all checks done within 5 minutes.

I had already raised this issue with the Xceed help desk and was using their replacement meter and new strips, the latest 0.3ul ones.

According to the helpdesk, different meter systems are 'allowed' to be 20% different from one another but should be within 10% for their own repeat readings. So which meter system to believe?

The OneTouch Ultra gave 8.7 against the clinic's 9.4 on a blood test last week; also, I had slight symptoms recently and saw 3.6 on the meter, which is about right for me. So I'm fairly happy with the OneTouch on that basis. With 3.6, the Xceed would have been reading 4.0 ie 10% higher. This could trap an unwary car driver out on the road, so there's a few things to think about here.

Anyone else had experience of accuracy checking and with what result?

Regards to all on this great forum qrp