urit-12 hgb meter, first impressions

[Mprtz]

It's been a goal to measure hct at home, and to that end I recently acquired a urit-12 handheld hemoglobin meter:

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Laws governing the sale of medical devices in the US limit the choices here - this is a simple made-in-china meter that can be ordered from overseas without being asked for a medical license.

How accurate can something this light and cheap be? Time will tell, but a little research shows that at least the concept behind it appears to be sound... there is chemistry in the test strips that combines hemoglobin with cyanide and uses reflectance of a 540nm light source to measure the hemoglobin content.

I ordered a bunch of test strips to go with it, and just used it for the first time.
Used a click lancet to poke a small hole in my finger and applied the blood drop to the pit in the test strip.

The machine read 165g/L and 50% - a plausible result.

I plan to check my hemoglobin maybe weekly for a while to see how repeatable the results are, if there is a trend, and how closely they match testing I might get elsewhere (privatemdlabs, clinic, or blood center)

 

[hiram1st]

New to the world of being on top of my my hemocrit through bloodwork could you elaborate on how this test could help make that easier?

Thanks

 

[Megatron28]

New to the world of being on top of my my hemocrit through bloodwork could you elaborate on how this test could help make that easier?

Thanks

You can check it yourself at home.

 

[Megatron28]

How much does the unit and testing strips cost? Is it easy to get the strips in the US?

 

[Mprtz]

There's a seller on amazon that has these, but I found it cheaper to go directly to a chinese company via alibaba. I paid $130 for the meter and $70 for 5 packs (10 tubes) of test strips, that should last me a long time. Shipping was surprisingly fast.

 

[hiram1st]

You can check it yourself at home.

Makes managing it alot easier and cheaper in the long run.

 

[Gbrad]

There's a seller on amazon that has these, but I found it cheaper to go directly to a chinese company via alibaba. I paid $130 for the meter and $70 for 5 packs (10 tubes) of test strips, that should last me a long time. Shipping was surprisingly fast.

U plan to get regular labs or donate soon? Would love to hear how it stacks up to both really. I swear the Red Cross always reads my HB a point or two high. Multiply that by 3 to est HCT and I had freaked out over nothing before. Lol.

Thx for that tip

 

[Mprtz]

U plan to get regular labs or donate soon? Would love to hear how it stacks up to both really. I swear the Red Cross always reads my HB a point or two high. Multiply that by 3 to est HCT and I had freaked out over nothing before. Lol.

Thx for that tip

I will have a blood draw with CBC soon, I plan to measure the same day so I can compare. I'll add the info to this thread.

In my experience the labcorp hct test is somewhat higher than the machine they use at my blood center (Ultracrit, which uses ultrasound rather than light).

 

[hiram1st]

I will have a blood draw with CBC soon, I plan to measure the same day so I can compare. I'll add the info to this thread.

In my experience the labcorp hct test is somewhat higher than the machine they use at my blood center (Ultracrit, which uses ultrasound rather than light).

That's great.

Thanks doing the leg work and posting it up

 

[Mprtz]

A reluctant update... barring some kind of user error this device doesn't seem to produce any usefully accurate results.

the first time I used it it gave me a plausible result: 50%

The next few tries gave me 58%, 58% and 35% respectively... I don't think any of these are close.

I'm not completely giving up yet, but right now this doesn't look like a good purchase

 

[halfwit]

A reluctant update... barring some kind of user error this device doesn't seem to produce any usefully accurate results.

the first time I used it it gave me a plausible result: 50%

The next few tries gave me 58%, 58% and 35% respectively... I don't think any of these are close.

I'm not completely giving up yet, but right now this doesn't look like a good purchase

You swabbing the site, pushing out several drops of blood, then swabbing once again before taking the sample? That's how the pros do it as the first few drops may have too much fibrin in them, messing up results.

 

[Mprtz]

You swabbing the site, pushing out several drops of blood, then swabbing once again before taking the sample? That's how the pros do it as the first few drops may have too much fibrin in them, messing up results.

That's one of the things I have to work on... the lancets I'm using make such a small hole that I have a hard time getting a single drop of blood, let alone two. I probably have to squeeze too hard getting that out, which may be affecting the results.

It would be helpful to have a calibration sample, not sure if I can get something like that.

 

[halfwit]

That's one of the things I have to work on... the lancets I'm using make such a small hole that I have a hard time getting a single drop of blood, let alone two. I probably have to squeeze too hard getting that out, which may be affecting the results.

It would be helpful to have a calibration sample, not sure if I can get something like that.

You can buy a variable lancet device at most pharmacies. I have found that going with a deeper setting will provide for a better flow, at a slight bit of discomfort. That, or get a diagonal lancet device from a medical supply store - some will sell to the public.

I looked into buying a hemoglobin monitor some time ago, and do remember seeing some that did have a calibration fluid. I think it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.