Coagucheck xs or coagusense ?

[Jimmyk]

when it comes to home testing, which machine do forum members trust most?
I recently tested at 1.9 on my new coagucheck xs compared to a week prior testing at 3.4 ,in a clinic using a coagusense.
i think the idea of home testing is great, but it would be better if you know that the results are accurate .
I'm supposed to be between 2.5 & 3.5.
Monday 7/17 will be 3 weeks since my Aortic valve replacement ,because of severe stenosis . I opted for a mechanical replacement, with no regrets.
The only concern is the INR home testing, which will be necessary because of work.
from the little bit of info I've read on home testing, there seems to be cosiderable differences on results.
Maybe I'm just jumping the gun a bit, I have an appointment at the Coumadin clinic this Tuesday . Hopefully they are able to give me the results the same day. I planned on home testing the same day when I get home to compare results.
As far as other members of the forum, how long have you been home testing for? Have you had any problems?

 

[pellicle]

I trust my coagcheck, I have been testing for 5 years with periodical lab tests for reference checks typically at 6 month intervals.

As per your last post myself and the members who replied to you suggested that the variations could be due to due to combinations of factors.

As I posted there nothing is 100% because everything has dependencies on chemistry and reagents (read that chart and paragraph in that post carefully).

When I started INR testing I got 0.8 variance from lab, but after a few more tests was within 0.2

You currently (that I know about) havr a single datapoint with which to make decision. That is entirely insufficient.

If you search here you will find a majority of people here use coaguchek, perhaps 70%

There are blood disorders which can cause the readings to display higher than they are, but your case is opposite to this.

I add all this because it might be some time before many home testers respond.

You are only jumping the gun if you are anxious about this.

PS: Did you understand my points in that other post? There were valid and important points raised by that post such as:

• the influence of beginning antibiotics (what was the exact time line between lab test, antibiotics and your home test)
• duration of time between lance and application of drop (time is often weirdly percieved in stress situations created by a test, start a stopwatch next time, or set your phone and video or just simply voice record with phone and call out "lance" drop applied for time records)
• (not raised there) was "did you lance the same site when you wasted a strip? You can not do that as the coagulation cascade will have begun and chemicals released by your body will be beginning coagulation at that point causing errors)

Remember that these (coagusense and coagucheck) are scientific instruments, not washing machines, so to evaluate trust of a machine you need to have undertaken rigorous testing; people seldom do (even if you read reviews on amazon you'll get wildy variant reviews).

Remember also that (as per that segment of article I posted) that we have no reference standard with INR .. it is rubbery. Not even lab draws are gold standard with respect to this as each reagent varies in responce time (and time is what INR is based on) and must baselined each day with known human samples (expensive, so did they do it). We can only calibrate a scale to be accurate when we have a reference Kg, not using "grains of wheat"

Agreed you observed a large variance but there remain questions unanswered by you from your post in determining if your machine / strip batch is to be called into question yet.

I applaud you asking these questions but be scientific and analytical in your approach to answering them.

Best Wishes

 

[Jimmyk]

Thanks Pellicle, I guess my nerves are getting the best of me. Probably too much time in the house.
No driving for another 3 weeks, I guess these changes are going to take time getting used to.

 

[LondonAndy]

I trust my CoaguChek XS, no question. I have almost 3 years of testing experience, with these days only twice annually checks at my hospital anti-coagulation clinic, and I have never had a more than 0.2 difference with their result.

It is also worth noting that here in the UK, our "NICE" organisation (National Institute for Clinical Excellence, a kinda health "best practice" regulator for England's NHS), explicitly recommended the CoaguChek XS in its report into home testing in 2014 - you can download a copy of their report from here, and I did an amateur summary of the key points which you can download here.

Try not to worry - listen to Pellicle, whom I have the greatest of respect for his experience both of heart valve issues and biological thingies - he has a very scientific approach, as you may have found from the many graphs and blogs he has posted.

You are seeing your doctor for another test in the next day or so I think? That will give you more information to go on.