Vet-tab

I have a tiny dog and, especially when her BG is very high, I just can't draw enough blood to activate the Alpha Track glucose reader. I saw the Vet-tab No-stick saliva test and thought, that's what I need. The perfect solution. If I had a larger dog with plenty of room and saliva in his cheek, I might not have looked further into how these test strips work- AND how they DON'T work- until I was able to compare the results against the vet's glucose tests. My dogs cheek was too small and dry. I had a hell of a time holding that test strip (with the very sharp corners) in her cheek without cutting her. I collected enough saliva to turn the test strip purple but it took forever. I think there was eve less saliva and it took me longer to collect it with my first actual tab test. It wasn't saturated enough and showed a very low reading. So I tried again a much easier way under her tongue, where there was plenty of saliva and collected instantly. That test showed a VERY high reading. I tested myself with a 3rd strip. Quickly wet it with the saliva under my tongue. That also showed a VERY high reading. Almost identical to the dogs under tongue reading. What I discovered is the strips don't use a sophisticated set of chemicals that react to specific repeatable sets of circumstances (at least not circumstances that have anything to do with your actual BG levels). What reading you get depends on how much saliva you collect. Under-saturate and get a low reading. Over-saturate and the reading is high. Collect the correct amount of saliva on pad (whatever the correct amount is) and you might get something mid-range, maybe even accurate. Or you wait 30 seconds too long before phot scanning. Allowing the test pad to absorb saliva for too long- So you get another high reading. Glucose levels are NOT measured by the amount of saliva you can collect. Therefore, if both under and over-saturating control the outcome of the reading then the test does NOT - in fact - measure glucose. The test is invalid and the readings are completely unreliablable.