Review – Abbott Optium Xceed
Think back to the wonderful day you were diagnosed with Type One. Ah, what lovely memories. The smell of hospital detergent, the sinking feeling in your belly as you realised with a chill that your life would never be the same, the caring but slightly detached consultant; wondering what the hell diabetes was and how long you had to live. Happy days.
After the initial shock you would – hopefully – be given a crash-course to teach you how to stand in for your pancreas, now that the stupid bloody thing had decide to conk out on you.
Weighted down with leaflets about driving with diabetes, drinking with diabetes, eating with diabetes and booklets detailing the thrills and spills of peripheral neuropathy you would have probably be issued with one of these little beauties, the ubiquitous Optium Xceed.
The Optium Xceed is the AK47 assault rifle of the blood-glucose meter world. Simple to use, common as manure from a Friesian cow called Smith, known all the world round and standard issue to the newly-diagnosed.
The less geeky and gadget-obsessed may still have one of these things in everyday use; the rest of us having moved on to something slightly more sophisticated. I certainly have. In fact I probably change my meter more frequently than a cholera victim changes his underwear.
However I still have a soft-spot for the Optium Xceed. I don’t know whether it’s because of Abbott’s cute assertion that this is only meter on the market that can check your ketones.
Now, I don’t know whether I’m a negligent diabetic or something but I never, ever, ever, ever check my ketones. I know I’m diabetic (obviously), I know sometimes my blood glucose goes high (obviously) and I know that, as sure as day follows breakfast, that I will sometimes produce ketones when I’m high. I don’t really need a meter to
tell me something so strikingly obvious.
Though saying that, I do own a Oregon weather station that tells me it’s raining outside (it does a lot of that in Scotland) when I could simply look out of the window. I didn’t need that meter to tell me that but I still have it. So maybe, the whole ketone measuring thing does have a place after all. Or maybe they’re just pandering to the lunatics who adhere to the late, lamentable Atkins’ diet; who calculate the diet isn’t working unless they’re producing ketones. Nutters.
Anyway, I saw this model on an episode of BBC’s Casualty when they had some poor bloke falling into a diabetic coma, or something, on an episode. I nudged my wife excitedly, “I’ve got one of them!” So for that reason alone it deserves to remain in the drawer with some out of date test strips for emergency use.
So to summarise:
Sample size > 5/5
0.3μL
Test time > 3/5
3 seconds
Test strip calibration > 2/5
Yes, each batch needs calibrating
Test strip slurpiness > 2/5
Slightly waterproof compared to other strips
Memory > 2/5
450 tests
Sexiness > 2/5
Too ubiquitous to be sexy – a victim of it’s own success
Beeping > 5/5
Yes, can be turned off
4am test > 3/5
Comes complete with backlight and is relatively straightforward to use
Grand total: 24/40
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Oh how true! The doctors who were so badly trained that they had no idea of the difference between Type 1 and Type 2, so add to the leaflets… Doctors telling you you could never eat jam again , nor have fruit or fruit juice..
The appalling dieticians who have NO idea about Diabetes and its effects (and I mean BOT type 1 and type 2)
and the gentle ‘over the top’ introduction to all the thigs you say.. driving licence having to be sent back and your DOWNGRADE to a disabled person or a drink driver, but without their rights.. even though we are probably safer than most drivers, the exercise thing.. remember them telling you how great it was for diabetes then WHAM.. the side effects and all the hypos, hard work, testing,eating whilst exercising.. as a dancer.. well franly they made me never want to exercise again. And all in one day with 2 days either side wired up to 3 intravenous drips in each arm so no movement, AND an insulin pump which made me look like a Borrower, which a huge battery.. and did they let me use the bed pan..NO I had to walk 2 drip thins to a tiny loo and had 2 minutes before the battery alarm went off
When they sent me down for ultrasound and chest xray. did they take me in my bed? NO they put me in a wheelchair which a HUGE battery killing all the feeling to my legs and a massive insulin pump
BUT there we go. Xceed was pushed to me. Fine in a way – Medieval finger stabber though. Great about the ketones things. Now on Nano Aviva which uses 2 CRO2 batterie3s and not the eco friendly one of the Xceeesd AND the strips fail all the time. BUt it’s handbag size BUT the strips have to stay in a non female handbag friendly TUB??? which you HAVE to leave them in or they get damp
Mix Xceed individually wrapped strips, 3 second timing, and ketone testing, with Aviva Nano size meter and non painful stabber and you’d have a fab meter.. but do they want to know.. do they hell!