i-stat cartridges

Re: i-stat cartridges

nikki — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 20:28:37 GMT

[quote user="Michael Woodhouse"]

A conker in February?!?!?!

[/quote]

well, it was def a conker, but pretty black and pickled - i wonder quite how long it had been rocking around the stomach before it started it's final journey!

Re: i-stat cartridges

Anthony Todd — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 23:41:02 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]Done it, changed the date! Thanks![/quote]

Can you do this with injectables too??

Re: i-stat cartridges

Michael Woodhouse — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 23:19:59 GMT

A conker in February?!?!?!

Re: i-stat cartridges

nikki — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:08:42 GMT

we have electrolytes separately with our biochem analyser, but still use the i-stat. mainly for ionised Calcium and for acid/base status. metabolic alkalosis is quite a reassuring finding when you're thinking of ex-laping a poss FB but cant see much on rads. Had one the other day v+ fairly profusely, nothing much on rads other than a bit of fluid build up in the stomach, but a clear alkalosis on i-stat. Went in and found a conker at the duodenal flexure.

Re: i-stat cartridges

Bob Russell — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:25:14 GMT

Done it, changed the date! Thanks!

Re: i-stat cartridges

jd2008 — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 04:48:47 GMT

You can still use the cartridges: reset the date on the I-Stat to a date prior to the expiry date of the cartridges and, hey-presto, the cartidges will run. I've done this a few times before with cartridges a couple of weeks out of date and have not had reason to doubt the results.

Cheers,

Jane

Re: i-stat cartridges

Kate Richardson — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:35:54 GMT

We only stock the one that does electrolytes, does HCT/Hb/Na/K/Cl. I mostly run it using spun plasma anyway, as I found I had a few false high potassium readings with whole blood, which I put down to sample haemolysis. Manufacturers assured me it wasn't necessary to spin blood, but I can get a pcv/hb from our haematology machine or manually anyway. I'm a bit of a potassium freak, prob because I mainly do feline work, and they are really prone to hypokalaemia, so I check electrolytes a lot.

We are looking into the ones that do blood gases/acid base balance, but I need to understand how to interpret them more first!