Thermometers

Re: Thermometers

Amie Glaves — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:42:44 GMT

Incidentally, what does everyone think to the new Biotherm chips?

I thought they were a great idea but our practice is very sceptical. I decided to contact the manufacturers to get some data which was dubious to say the least.

We've had readings of 35'C which I'm sure is incompatible with life!

Re: Thermometers

Sandy Edwards — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:50:29 GMT

When I was is hospital with Erysipelas for 4 days the nurses used ear thermometers and told me as I cold sweated that I was fine now , luckily I had a good old glass thermometer in my pocket as was able to ammend the temp chart !!

Re: Thermometers

Ian Mostyn — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:09:25 GMT

[quote user="Vikki Halliday"]Would never dare to suggest we were deliberately conning clients, I just have had a few pack up and the chip manufacturer washed their hands of it..[/quote]

I am sure most people aren't but I have seen a few price lists where the extra cost of a biothermo chip is not justified by the extra suppliers cost of the chip itself. We are lucky to have the Animalcare rep as a client and she only lives 1/2 mile down the road so we have always had excellent support but i can genuinely say we have not had 1 fail.

Ian

Re: Thermometers

Vikki Halliday LLB — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:52:18 GMT

[quote user="Ian Mostyn"]We have sold over 1000 and I have not had one stop working yet. We also charge a very similar price to normal microchips (£22.95) and have never sold a normal chip in 6 years so I don't think we are conning anyone[/quote]

Would never dare to suggest we were deliberately conning clients, I just have had a few pack up and the chip manufacturer washed their hands of it.

[quote user="Ian Mostyn"]We have 5 scanners and all of them work with the chips and as far as I know, all recent Identichip supplied scanners have the ability. A local large practice also uses them so pets in Bury and east Bolton are highly likely to have a biothermo chip now and we both have scanners.[/quote]

We are a bit further Oop North and they don't seem to have reached the practices I have worked in yet!

Re: Thermometers

Ian Mostyn — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:48:42 GMT

[quote user="Vikki Halliday"]

[quote user="Clive Ansell"]Does anybody use thermo ID chips?[/quote]

Yep and have had placate a few irate clients when they stopped working completely, id chip and all.............

Wouldn't advise them they seem to be a bit of a con, and I've not yet found a practice that routinely carried a thermo chip reader.

[/quote]

We have sold over 1000 and I have not had one stop working yet. We also charge a very similar price to normal microchips (£22.95) and have never sold a normal chip in 6 years so I don't think we are conning anyone. Not sure I would have two prices and offer a choice of chips though. We have 5 scanners and all of them work with the chips and as far as I know, all recent Identichip supplied scanners have the ability. A local large practice also uses them so pets in Bury and east Bolton are highly likely to have a biothermo chip now and we both have scanners.

Ian

Re: Thermometers

Ian Mostyn — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:44:06 GMT

[quote user="Clive Ansell"]

Call me Mr old fashioned, but I prefer a dual scale mercury one.

I don't like those ear thermometers; patients don't like them and I find they don't correlate well with conventional mercury ones.

Does anybody use thermo ID chips? does anyone remember which patients have them and which don't?

Do people use Celsius or Fahrenheit? The SI unit for temperature is the Kelvin (K), but I guess nobody uses it, or has a thermometer graduated in it?

[/quote]

I managed to get a dozen of the dual scale mercury thermometers so I am Ok for a few years (hopefully). I still use fahrenheit although our computer software does an automatic conversion. We have used the Biothermo chips for 6 years and I generally find the readings to be about 1o fahrenheit below rectal temperature. Once you get used to it and make a conversion in your normals, they seem to be fairly reliable. They are certainly easier to use than a rectal thermometer in fractious cats! I tend to check on the clinical record what the microchip number is, as all the biothermo chips start 98514.

I don't use Kelvin for temperatures but then neither do I use 3.6 kiloseconds for an hour

Ian

Re: Thermometers

Vikki Halliday LLB — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:42:26 GMT

[quote user="Clive Ansell"]Does anybody use thermo ID chips?[/quote]

Yep and have had placate a few irate clients when they stopped working completely, id chip and all.............

Wouldn't advise them they seem to be a bit of a con, and I've not yet found a practice that routinely carried a thermo chip reader.

Re: Thermometers

Clive Ansell — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:14:03 GMT

Call me Mr old fashioned, but I prefer a dual scale mercury one.

I don't like those ear thermometers; patients don't like them and I find they don't correlate well with conventional mercury ones.

Does anybody use thermo ID chips? does anyone remember which patients have them and which don't?

Do people use Celsius or Fahrenheit? The SI unit for temperature is the Kelvin (K), but I guess nobody uses it, or has a thermometer graduated in it?

Re: Thermometers

Jillian Hall — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:12:24 GMT

Ive seen the little condom-tips for ear thermometers but they dont seem in the slightest bit accurate with or without their little sheath. And the animals objected to them every bit as much as rectal thermomenters. They are another bit of equipment very quickly condemned to the back of a drawer.

I'd like to say I prefer the digital ones with their quick readings but sometimes I think they're a bit too quick. I haven't diagnosed a pyrexic animal in several weeks and I'm blaming the thermometer - I just don't like the look of the particular one in my consulting room at the moment.

Re: Thermometers

Rebecca MacMillan — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:30:56 GMT

[quote user="Evelyn Barbour-Hill"]

"You know, the disposable plastic things you put on the digital thermometer."

[/quote]

We were made to use the digital thermometer 'condoms' whilst in the small animal hospital at college but then for large animal rotations it seems the rules don't apply! Spit for lube and a quick wipe after! And then back into the small animal hospital with the very same thermometer which we now have to religiously put a cover over...

Re: Thermometers

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:51:24 GMT

I'm glad to say I have a stock of proper Fahrenheit glass thermometers that will probably see me out if I'm careful.

I employed a nurse once who just couldn't master the minor skill of shaking down a thermometer - something that every mother once took for granted. By the way, don't try putting it in the tea in order to fake a fever: it shoots up ridiculously high and gives the game away.

Small children are often fascinated when they see me taking Bonzo's temperature up his bum. I warn them solemnly to avoid getting appendicitis in France. Anyone who has had appendicitis in France in the 1960s will understand.

I once had the following conversation with a new-graduate locum:

She:"Do you mind if I use my digital thermometer? All the clinicians in the [vet school] hospital use them. I'm just not used to glass ones."

Me: "No, of course not, but you'll have to get your own supply of the sheaths, because I haven't got any."

She: "Sheaths? What are they?"

Me: "You know, the disposable plastic things you put on the digital thermometer."

She: "I don't think I've ever seen those. None of the clinicians in the [vet school] hospital use them."

Me: "But how do they clean the thermometer between patients?"

She: "Well, they don't."

I am reminded of a letter to The Veterinarian in I think 1881 (I will try to dig out the reference when I get time). I suspect it was not entirely serious. I cannot quote it word for word but this was the gist of part of it. "I read where some use the barometer to diagnose and I ordered one, it came in a box, the first time I tried it the beast kicked out and I thought would spoil my hinsterment; the man holding the nose thought I was giving mercury backerds, the man holding the tail laughed and said 'twas a queer clyster; I nearly lost it inside the beast and had a great deal of trouble getting it out again; since then I have given up the hinsterment and diagnose without it."

Re: Thermometers

Clive Ansell — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:31:15 GMT

We couldn't find it by rectal exam, or looking through passed faeces so it seemed to be lost.

Another vet in the practice reported finding one in another horses rectum 50 miles away, but I think he was trying to wind me up and I don't believe him.

Re: Thermometers

Malcolm Ness — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:10:04 GMT

You didn't really LOSE the thermometer - you knew exactly where it was!!

Re: Thermometers

Clive Ansell — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:25:29 GMT

As a fourth year student seeing equine practice, I lost a thermometer in a horses rectum. While taking the temperature and listening to gut sounds at the same time, the horse coughed, and there was a rapid inward movement of air with the thermometer being sucked from my grasp. It has never been found.

I am always reminded of it when visiting the practice, I guess I will never live it down.

Re: Thermometers

Hanna Bennett — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:55:23 GMT

get a room you two!

Re: Thermometers

Ian Mostyn — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:27:57 GMT

Give us a snog!

Re: Thermometers

Gillian Mostyn — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:20:52 GMT

I feel nauseus.

You won't be coming anywhere me then Ian....

Re: Thermometers

Ian Mostyn — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:41:49 GMT

A larger reptile should be able to maintain their body temperature for a few hours as long as the weather is reasonable outside. Saying that, I don't usually bother, there are many more interesting things to do to a snake than take its temperature! A lot of big reptile keepers are using the infrared thermometers to read the temperature of the viv by zapping it. I guess they look a bit like bar code scanners. Not tried one myself, starts looking a bit Star Trekky for my liking. A soon as someone brings out a medical tricorder (I think that is what they called it), I am out of a job as a trained monkey could be a vet.

I could always warm the thermometer up in my mouth for 10 seconds first........ how good is my cleaning????

Ian

Re: Thermometers

Hannah Wynne Richards — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:25:39 GMT

Clive. You remind me of a comment I read in an article on exotics-many years ago, when they were still rare. It said that taking a reptiles temp would tell you more about the state of health of your heating system, than the state of health of your patient !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wynne

Re: Thermometers

Clive Ansell — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:41:41 GMT

[quote user="Lucie Allcutt"]

Maybe I'm crazy but if I had to choose between a hard, cold, glass thermometer and a bendy tipped plastic digital one that can read in a few seconds I know what I would prefer!! ;-)

[/quote]

Just warm it on the radiator first

Re: Thermometers

Hanna Bennett — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:22:11 GMT

[quote user="Vikki Halliday"]

Has anyone had any success with the ear thermometers?

[/quote]

Don't do it! we invested in one a couple of eyars ago, thinking cats would prefer it to rectal thermometers - answer is a definite no! They hate it and we have the scars to prove it!

Re: Thermometers

Lucie Allcutt — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:47:13 GMT

[quote user="Ian Mostyn"]

Possibly I have just used cheap digital thermometers but I find the mercury ones quicker, more accurate and as long as you don't drop them, they don't run out of battery power either. I also find it easier to clean a glass thermometer than a plastic one but mainly it is a case of the old ones just work! I also prefer to use Fahrenheit to centigrade because when measured to 1 decimal place, Fahrenheit is 1.8 x more accurate. But then it could be because I am a grumpy old man

Ian

[/quote]

Hehe, actually - we have some common ground here! I am a Farenheit kind of gal, I agree that it's more accurate and well, I'm just used to it! No celsius over here!

I guess every thermometer has its pros and cons, I am just a big fan of the bendy tips for wiggly bottoms. And also, I honestly have the hardest time trying to read the mercury ones...There, I said it!

Re: Thermometers

Ian Mostyn — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:04:45 GMT

[quote user="Lucie Allcutt"]

Maybe I'm crazy but if I had to choose between a hard, cold, glass thermometer and a bendy tipped plastic digital one that can read in a few seconds I know what I would prefer!! ;-)

[/quote]Possibly I have just used cheap digital thermometers but I find the mercury ones quicker, more accurate and as long as you don't drop them, they don't run out of battery power either. I also find it easier to clean a glass thermometer than a plastic one but mainly it is a case of the old ones just work! I also prefer to use Fahrenheit to centigrade because when measured to 1 decimal place, Fahrenheit is 1.8 x more accurate. But then it could be because I am a grumpy old man

Ian

Re: Thermometers

Vikki Halliday LLB — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:33:04 GMT

Has anyone had any success with the ear thermometers?

I've got one at home and use it on my little girl when I have to, and I have noted that her normal temperature appears to be 36.4, so approximately a degree below what would be considered normal core temperature.

I was thinking of investing in one for the practice, but not sure if I would have the same interpretation problem.

I currently use a very small digital thermometer having been converted from mercury a few years ago, mainly because I kept breaking the damn things!

Re: Thermometers

Lucie Allcutt — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:19:52 GMT

Maybe I'm crazy but if I had to choose between a hard, cold, glass thermometer and a bendy tipped plastic digital one that can read in a few seconds I know what I would prefer!! ;-)