Hello,
Does anyone have the GlucoRx HCT & Ketone Monitoring System and could recommend it?
I am looking for a working, but affordable ketone blood monitor but I have no idea where to start. I don’t want to spend a fortune on the actual monitor, or on the replacement strips.
I am currently looking at those that I have already found on the forum, e.g. the Precision Xtra but if you have more ideas, please let me know.
I appreciate your advice 
!
Have a lovely weekend!
I was looking into getting the Nova Max Plus. Seems to be the most affordable here in the US. They have some pretty good deals on their website too. Haven’t gotten it yet, waiting for payday lol.
I have the Nova Max Plus but I don’t have another to compare it with. I mostly like it but I have one issue which is frequent error readings and wasted strips. I think it is mostly my poor technique and a side effect of having Raynaud’s syndrome with bad circulation in my hands and a neuro muscular disease that causes shaky unsteady hands making it hard to accurately touch the strip to the blood drop. Despite the unit claiming to require exceptionally little blood I struggle to get an adequate blood drop that fully wicks into the strip. Over time I’ve gotten better and now waste maybe 1 in 5 strips instead of 2 out of 3, but it would be nice to be able to reliably get a reading with each try, I’d also like if instead of just giving an error code it would give me a reading - perhaps inaccurate, along with the error code. I don’t think any of these devices do that though but if they did and I got a reading within an expected range I would accept it and not have to try again with another strip as I’m not using the readings to administer medication.
Anyway, I’ve mostly switched to using a cheap breathalyzer which is so much easier and cheaper and just use the blood strips once in a while for comparison.
Hello all,
Thank you for your recommendations! 
I have heard about the Nova Max Plus but have not yet checked if it is available here in the UK.
@brownfat: which breathalyser do you use, and would you recommend it?
I have 3 breathalyzers because they are so inexpensive and I wanted to compare. This one is I find the easiest to use and get consistent results. My other two give more precise results but the extra precision doesn’t help because they are less consistent with the result more affected by how one breathes into them. These breathalyzers are super useful and being nearly free I think everyone should be using them.
Thank you! So how do they work? Sorry, I have to ask, but I really don’t know. I thought they were for alcohol only.
The cheap ones use a detector that can’t distinguish between alcohol and acetone. Acetone is what the other keto breathalyzers such as the quite expensive ketonix measure. This one reports a blood alcohol percent value such as 0.05% BAC which is the threshhold for setting off the alarm warning you not to drive. I typically hit that level after a day of fasting. I normally target 0.03% BAC as when I hit that level I almost always get a blood reading in excess of 0.5 mmol/L. I find the breath readings are slower to respond, say if I binge on cashews it will take longer before the reading drops then it would by blood testing. But the blood strips are too pricey for me to use frequently and I find the breathalyzer sufficient to guide food choices. I’m not trying to optimize or maximize a ketone score rather I’m just looking to stay moderately in ketosis without fussing too much about counting and limiting carbs and protein.
I think this is based on an Ardunio project from some years ago (Arduino’s are small hobbyist/experimental programmable mini-computer chips). If I recall, it used the cheap-end alcohol sensor (around $5) that can detect and doesn’t differentiate a bunch of organic volatile gases including acetone (and ethanol). It was not calibrated or accurate by any means and it was intended to be a personalized go no-go device to tell if there was acetone on your breath. But still, it’s a lot cheaper than a Ketonix (which uses an expensive acetone detector). Many of us here have found that many of the cheap breathalyzers available work well, but they’re quite hit and miss, which I guess you have to accept given their cost.
Here’s the original Arduino project from 2013: https://jenslabs.com/2013/06/06/ketosense-an-arduino-based-ketosis-detector/
Thank you for the link! Interesting device–Looks very similar. I went ahead and ordered one of the units off of Ebay; it looks like a 4 to 10 day delivery window. As soon as it comes in, I will report back. It is definitely cheaper than a Ketonix, and playing with gadgets just warms the cockles of my nerdy little heart.
Additionally, the seller states that it measures acetone on the breath, but who really knows? I will make an attempt to film the unboxing.
No doubt it does. Measuring volatiles is easy…differentiating is hard. The quick test for this would be to take a swig of hard liquor, swish it around your mouth and blow into the device…it’ll go hard off-scale pretty quickly if it’s also detecting ethanol.
Thank you all very much for your input and advice. It just shows how much I still I have to learn.
Spirit Healthcare do one called the Caresens Dual I use it for my ketones £10.00 for 10 ketone strips… not cheap but one of the lest expensive I have found
http://spirit-healthcare.co.uk/product/caresens-dual-blood-glucose-and-ketone-meter/
If the website has a problem (i have found it a bit flaky) then they are very helpful if you call them.
Thanks Mark, I had a look at it. So is the monitor as such really free as long as you get the correct strips with it?
Looks that way… I think I paid about 10 quid for mine but it seems to be free now… hmmm oh well
I will just give it a go, if they want money, they have to let me know 
Thanks again, Mark, much appreciated!