Abbott Laboratories recalls glucose test strips

[Celebration]

Source: Los Angelas Times

Abbott Laboratories announced a recall Wednesday of as many as 359 million glucose test strips used to monitor diabetics' blood sugar because the strips may give false low readings.

The strips may not absorb enough blood quickly enough to give a proper reading, which can lead users to try to raise sugar levels unnecessarily, or to fail to treat elevated glucose levels, the company said in a statement.

The chemically treated paper strips were manufactured at an Abbott facility in the United Kingdom between January and May 2010, according to company spokesman Scott Davies.

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The recall involves 359 lots of strips marketed by Alameda, Calif.-based Abbott Diabetes Care and are used with Abbott's Precision Xtra, Precision Xceed Pro, MediSense Optium, Optium, Optium EZ and ReliOn Ultima blood glucose monitoring systems.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-glucose-strips-20101223,0,1428150.story

[SheilaT]

1. I don't know a lot about diabetes,

but wouldn't false high readings be as bad, although maybe in a different way, as false low readings?

[IDemo]

2. Potentially more so

I correct a high enough reading with one unit of insulin (Humalog) for each 50 points over 100mg/dl. So at a blood glucose reading of 250, I would take three units. If a faulty test strip showed a reading of 250 when I was really only 130, for instance, I could be putting myself into a possibly too low level with those three units. Luckily, I can tell the physical difference between those sugar levels, but not all diabetics can.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Also could prevent knowing that one is hypoglycemic

And they could, say, pass out while driving. Most people can feel when they have hypoglycemia, but not all...

[IDemo]

7. Yes, even without overcorrecting with insulin as in my example.

I'm not sure how far off these test strips were, but a reading of 80 with an actual bg level of ~35 could be highly interesting, to say the least.

I'm approaching the 50 year mark with this disease and have developed both a resistance to low sugars and the ability to tell pretty accurately where I'm at, glucose-wise. I can probably fool most people that nothing is wrong even at the 30 mg/dl mark, but I haven't been there for a long time since going on Lantus (extra long acting insulin).

[aquart]

3. Any false reading is dangerous.

Because the insulin is adjusted based on them.

[Alameda]

4. OMG! I wonder if there are any records of deaths from this?

This is very serious and I would not be at all surprised if there have been some very serious consequences as a result.

[IDemo]

6. Highly unlikely

As the story states, this batch of strips errs on the "safe" side, showing a lower than actual blood glucose level. A user might over-correct with too many calories, but they wouldn't wind up in a dangerous hypoglycemic state as they might in the opposite case. Extremely high sugars, or hyperglycemia, will eventually cause nausea, dehydration and even diabetic coma, but it would take a massive overdose of sugar to get one into this condition. An injection of rapid acting insulin will overcome it fairly quickly.

[Alameda]

8. I have a few friends with diabetes who have gone into comas

from low blood sugar. It seems very possible one could over correct a "high" blood sugar reading and get some l serious poblems.

[IDemo]

9. That could happen, if the strips were erring on the high side

I posted about that scenario in #2. But the story stated that these test strips were erring in the other direction - lower than actual. If anything, a diabetic will drink some orange juice or take another form of carbohydrate if they believe their glucose levels are too low. That would result in thirstiness and frequent urination in a false low situation, but nothing more serious (unless they gorge on calories and ignore the symptoms for many hours).

Generally, the only time an insulin dosage is taken as a corrective measure is when blood glucose levels are at a 150 mg/dl point or higher.

[HereSince1628]

10. Website given in article doesn't work, Abbott's phones are swamped