CardioChek PA Portable Blood Test System 1 ea

I have had mine for about 3 or 4 years. I am a doctor, but work in the ER so don't use this on my patients, rather myself and family. When I first got it I tested it a few times in a row on myself and the readings were reliably consistent. I then got a lab draw at my hospital and the results were essentially the same, so it is both reliable and accurate. I always test in the same place in my house with the same ambient light (which is just enough to be able to poke my finger and perform the test) since I read somewhere that bright light could interfere with the photometric sensor. The lipid panel gives me TC, HDL, TG, and LDL along with the TC/HDL ratio. The only downside is that the strips come in a box of 15, and expire after a year or so. At $10 a strip, I end up not using them all before they expire. Not sure if they work after expiration, so its a waste. Apparently you can change the date in the meter to allow you to use expired strips but not sure how accurate the strips are after expiration. I recommend you get the tiny little plastic pipettes so as to deliver a consistent blood volume each time. So in summary, keep your ambient light consistent where you run the test, and use the pipettes to drop the blood because too much or too little definitely affects the reading. If you do that you will get accurate results everytime. Apart from that, check your BP regularly at home, eat right, drink in moderation, exercise a bit, and maybe get a colonoscopy now and then and you should live a long and healthy life.

Now it’s been a few months and this device JUST PLAIN SUCKS! EVERY time I use it I find that it has once again drained the batteries to 0 (even though it turns itself off after timing out and won’t let you push a button to accomplish the same). You MUST use a capillary tube to pre-collect blood or you’ll NEVER get enough blood for a test from a lancet. It requires 10x more blood than a glucose meter. EVEN THEN you’ll probably not get enough blood APPLIED INTO THE DEVICE (which is an entirely different class of PITA) for a valid test. EXPECT to run TWO test attempts for any single valid result. A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY! I’m just going to use LabCorp et al for periodic lipid tests. This device is a Windows 3 class experience (beyond clunky, expensive, frustrating, truly annoying). New to this process (but I’ve been using an Abbott ketone/glucose reader for a year). Just arrived. First run. Here’s my initial feedback: 1) Menus are easy enough to grok and setup only took a two minutes (one thumb up); 2) The test strip for the PA unit has an oval patch on one side and three round patches on the other. You put the blood sample in the OVAL patch (insert the strip FIRST before applying blood if confused, as I was); 3) The machine needs a fair bit of blood to run its test (~6-8x what a glucometer needs) so YOU’LL NEED A CAPILLARY TUBE to collect/cache the blood from your finger before applying it to the strip. Doing this without a capillary tube is a messy, error probe PITA (thumbs down); 4) The machine will automatically begin the test once enough blood is applied (you DO have to ready the machine in advance though ... it doesn’t just auto ignite when the strip is inserted); The test takes about 60-90 seconds to complete. To turn the machine off after a test you just leave it and it will time out. There is NO explicit way to shut it off. Purchase the meter, plus ONE batch of strips (they expire rapidly so don’t get to many!) and a collection of capillary tubes. It takes a few attempts to get the hang of it.

My results did not match lab LDL was 40 points (ul) ?? higher on the lab test than on the cardiochek PA. Triglicerides were lower at the lab by 14 points, and hdl lower by 2. Total cholesterol was higher by 35. Have called PTS (called pts cardiocheck PA on the box..I assume they would have best info why such a difference), but they go through a lot of questions, said they would call this morning to see if I was using it correctly, no call. I will call again on a weekday to see if I can get some answers. They told me there are variances, but I would rather speak to them again before posting those variances. I suggest you call PTS to verify variances before purchase. I use this to try and monitor my cholesterol as I cannot take statins due to side effects. I bought the PA model because I did not want to do 3 test on the earlier version of CardioChek. Some people have good luck with this chardiochek PA, but I would like to see it work better and be closer to the labs. It's a lot of money to spend since I use it at home to keep monitor my lipids ... trying to get my ldl lower, and that's the one that has the highest descrepency. Not saying it's a bad product, my unit doesn't seem to be working correctly.

I bought this with low expectations! I seriously doubted anyone could make a machine the size of a calculator that would check blood lipid levels accurately. I was wrong! I love this thing! I check myself every 3 months. It is the perfect gadget for the health freak who HATES seeing doctors for annual examinations (me)!