A Verio Pro, yesterday
How come I’m testing and reviewing?
After spotting an advert in Balance, I called Lifescan to blag a new OneTouch Verio Pro to test out. From the advert it seemed like a very, very slimmed down version of the Aviva Expert and it claimed to be able to spot patterns of high and low readings and to make suggests if dosages needed altering.
There was also mention of its “GlucoFilter” which “corrects for the presence of certain substances that, when present at therapeutic levels, commonly interfere with accurate BG results, such as paracetamol and Vitamin C.” That’s all new on me but I thought I’d give it a go…
In the box
The meter arrives in the usual shiny box and inside is the meter itself, a pack of ten test strips, the OneTouch Comfort finger-pricker with stabby things, black carry case roughly 17cm by 10cm, control solution, plenty of leaflets and a manual the size of a small novel.
The meter
Sized 57mm x 88m (roughly twice the size of the Accu-Chek Aviva Nano) with three buttons on the front and a slot at the top for the test strip. The display is very clear and similar in shade to a generic e-book reader with the added benefit of being backlit for the dark. Although I always have issues when testing in the dark with actually getting the blood that’s slowly coming out of my finger onto the strip.
One huge plus is that it takes 2 AAA batteries to power it. The big issue with my current, favoured, Aviva Nano is the use of flat CR2032 batteries that aren’t cheap to replace. Be aware though it’s not possible to use rechargeable batteries in the meter, according to the hefty manual.
The stabber
I cannot emphasise enough how impressed I was with the blood extractor. It is easily the least painful pricker I’ve used, although the needles aren’t as hard-wearing as my previous Multiclix so will not be suitable for those that replace their lancets less frequently.
In use
The test strips need blood applying from the side, which is different for me but it just might be I’ve not come across that style of strip before [Abbott’s FreeStyle Lite also has sideways strips – Tim]. The strips need 0.4 µl of blood, which isn’t too bad and results are returned in 5 seconds after a countdown on the display.
The brains
The data analysis is where I had really high hopes for the Verio Pro and I was maybe a little over-optimistic in what I believed it could offer me. It comes with average analysis scores over 7, 14 and 30 days. Results can be tagged as before-meal, after-meal, fasting or bedtime.
The highly promising trend analysis looks at your BG and will display a message depending on whether it spots patterns in your BG. The lower limit of the acceptable range is set at 3.8mmol/L but the upper pre-meal limit is changeable depending on your own targets.
A low pattern message will appear when you get a ‘low’ (under 3.8) BG on any 2 days within the same 3 hour period over the last 5 consecutive days.
A high pattern message will appear when you get a ‘high’ BG on any 3 days with the test tagged as pre-meal within the same 3hr period over the last 5 consecutive days. This only works for pre-meal tagged tests.
That’s it. No more analysis given, which is a great shame. There’s obviously potential here but the inability to add insulin or notes for exercise, etc., means that the 1,001 other ;
Thanks for the review Dave. I tried out the Verio too and agree with your review – it was a perfectly okay meter but nothing wildly exciting. I didn’t try the finger pricker though – I might give it go now!
Good review. thanks Dave. I can’t say there’s anything there that will tempt me away from my run of the mill, does the job, Optium Xceed.
Re batteries – Abbott do free replacement batteries for their meters, I just order them online. I don’t know if other manufacturers do the same, but worth looking into rather than having to buy the expensive ones yourself.
Thanks @alison. Accu-chek do provide replacement batteries for free also. Unfortunately in my experience they take longer to arrive than the warning given by the meter lasts for.
At least with AAAs replacing yourself is not too expensive or inconvenient if caught short – or maybe that’s because I have small kids so have a constant supply of AAAs and AAs ready for the hundreds of small toys that use them!
Ah, that would be a real pain. I’ve used the Abbott service a couple of times and the batteries have always arrived the next day, which has been in plenty of time. I guess I should give them more brownie points than I thought as their service seems impressive!
Interestingly enough (and I use the term “interesting” in the broadest sense) the battery on my meter ran out earlier today, so I just popped into Boots and bought a new battery for a pound or whatever it was – easy!
I also bought a ham & cheese sandwich, ready salted crisps and a bottle of diet coke. I know – amazing! 🙂
@Alison – and the Optium Xceed is sooo last decade; get with the program sister…!
@tim Sadly I’m a country bumpkin who works from home so popping to Boots at lunch isn’t that easy.
However, all that’s my fault and yes it’s easy, but, and the point I was trying to make, regular, common batteries make life much easier for the user.
I promise never to comment on battery types again 😛
@seasiderdave – you should move to a city; cities rock! 🙂
Anyway, yes, I agree – if everything used AAA batteries life would be considerably easier. Especially as Medtronic send me a pack of four AAA’s with every lot of my pump supplies. Don’t tell them, but I order a few more than I need and use them in other things – like in our fancy battery-powered fairy lights in @Katie‘s sewing room! Sssshhh….
@Tim Ah, my Optium Xceed is now so old its practically retro so it’s very nearly cool all over again.
Me thinks you may have been in the Xtreem Low range when writing the post title. Accu-check is Roche and One Touch is J&J or at least on this side of the pond that is how it works.
I’ll step back and blame site editor here for adding the title 🙂
Eh, what? You saw nothing other than the current title… /ninja edit.
[I’m an idiot! – you’d have thought adding the link to lifescan.co.uk should have been a big fat clue for me, eh?! Anyway, thanks Bennet, what would we do without you? Other readers might be interested to learn that Bennet runs the world’s second-best diabetes blog over at http://www.ydmv.net/, sometimes it’s even worth reading! :-)]