Ketone meter malfunction?

(Robin ) #1

Been keto for many months, ketones usually 1-3. Cheated and had some popcorn at the movies with hubby, tested about six hours lateral and was 1.9. Asked hubby to test just to see if meter was crazy, and my carb eating man had .4. Now, he hadn’t eaten in about six hours either, is it possible for him to have that reading or are my strips or meter broken? Any ideas?

#2

What did the meter read the next day?

(Richard Morris) #3

It takes about a day for my ketone production to be depressed by eating a source of glucose, and 3-4 to get it back by going back on plan. But it has been over a year since I experienced that.

(Robin ) #4

I guess I hear phrases like “kicked out of ketosis” and assume that would affect readings within hours. I didn’t look at this yesterday so didn’t check. Today I was 1.9 after dinner and he was .1. I was surprised that he registered anything. I guess a better question could be-have people had issues with malfunctioning strips bought out of package online?

#5

@RobinD Based on repeat readings that I sometimes do, I estimate that the error for any one reading is from 0.1 to 0.2 points. Therefore your man’s low readings probably are really below the nutritional ketosis level and the machine is reading as accuately as it can do.
Also, before I started ketoing, if I tested my ketones I would always get a low reading of 0.1-0.3.
I think your meter and your strips are probably ok.
Btw. I have used strips 6 months out of date before. They were fine.

#6

Definitely a roll on effect. You might ‘get away with’ a one off if you have a good metabolism to start with. Most likely it will have a negative impact which could hit you in a number of ways…

  • direct strike in that you get kicked out of ketosis which could last for hours to days or even longer.
  • direct strike on your cravings because Boom, you want carbs again now thank you very much and you will have to fight those cravings all over again
  • more of an insidious creep because you managed to fly under the keto radar so maybe you will try again with the same or something else and keep testing boundaries. Sooner or later this catches up with you and you will have a fight on your hands.

As to blood testing - I haven’t ever used one so I am not sure. Most methods of testing can throw off results sometimes though. Bear in mind that they are simply a tool and not really to be relied upon heavily to tell you if you are doing things correctly. You need to use a much wider field of vision for that - health, wellbeing, energy, mood, and so on.