Ketosis testing
- Thread starter finnsmum
- Start date
Starlight
Gold Member
NO! Dont waste your money. Bottom line is if you stick to the plan properly youll be in ketosis in a few days. Once youre in ketosis you dont fall in and out of ketosis nor do you go 'a bit' in ketosis. Too many people get hung up on those stupid things and stress about what they say.
Some people can stick rigidly to a diet, and never register pink on a stick, so no, dont bother with them
Some people can stick rigidly to a diet, and never register pink on a stick, so no, dont bother with them
TripleWhopper
Banned
I would buy. They are 5 pounds only for 100 sticks.
With them not only you will reassure yourself you are on the right track, but you will monitor your ketone levels more accurately, to see if you are drinking enough water for your system and to see if you are not developing ketoacidosis.
Imagine you did not know you were diabetic and thought everything was alright... If you had the sticks and you saw the colour of it be very dark, you could have yourself checked with the GP to see if you had a tendency to have mild diabetes.
I always check every day to see if it's within normal levels. After all, what's 5 quid every 100 days worth of sticks?
And Starlight its totally possible to be in ketosis and not have the stick read it pink, in which case means that there's enough water to dilute the levels of ketones.
I kinda do it in the morning because it reads the levels of my system without water for 6-8 hours. I prefer the Dirui and Roche sticks than the ones from Bayer.
With them not only you will reassure yourself you are on the right track, but you will monitor your ketone levels more accurately, to see if you are drinking enough water for your system and to see if you are not developing ketoacidosis.
Imagine you did not know you were diabetic and thought everything was alright... If you had the sticks and you saw the colour of it be very dark, you could have yourself checked with the GP to see if you had a tendency to have mild diabetes.
I always check every day to see if it's within normal levels. After all, what's 5 quid every 100 days worth of sticks?
And Starlight its totally possible to be in ketosis and not have the stick read it pink, in which case means that there's enough water to dilute the levels of ketones.
I kinda do it in the morning because it reads the levels of my system without water for 6-8 hours. I prefer the Dirui and Roche sticks than the ones from Bayer.
Starlight
Gold Member
And by the same token you can see your readings are very dark and it means absolutely nothing. Apart from your readings are dark. People who aren't on a VLCD wouldn't dream of checking their ketosis levels.
It drives me mad when you people on here stressing and fretting cos these damn sticks show their levels are low/high/non existent/fluctuating. Who needs that stress.
Have your 3 packs a day. Drink your fluids. You'll be in ketosis. Simple
And yes I know it's possible to be in ketosis and not be pink. That's EXACTLY my point - the readings prove nothing
It drives me mad when you people on here stressing and fretting cos these damn sticks show their levels are low/high/non existent/fluctuating. Who needs that stress.
Have your 3 packs a day. Drink your fluids. You'll be in ketosis. Simple
And yes I know it's possible to be in ketosis and not be pink. That's EXACTLY my point - the readings prove nothing
rainbow brite
~Starsprinkled~
Throwing in my 2 cents - I bought Ketostix, used them... twice? As Starlight says, if you stick to the diet properly you'll be in ketosis. TripleWhopper makes a valid point in that it can reassure you, but if you, like me, are short on cash these days, honestly in my opinion they aren't worth it.
Getslimquick
Been liberated by Exante!
Starlight said:
I bought a brand new box, tested morning, noon and evening and in seven months and six stone of weight loss I never had a positive reading - but I carried on. Three packets, gallons of water and it works. Ketostixs are not useful for measuring hydration - if you are drinking enough your wee is pale yellow. The diet works best if you are not dehydrated.
So it's your choice, if you are a diabetic or are prone to the disease you need professional medical monitoring and advice - not some ketostixs. No one should take risks with their health, but if you are fit and well apart from carrying too much weight you will be fine. Skip the sticks and spend the money on luxury fizzy water perhaps. I did.
GSQ
TripleWhopper
Banned
Ketostix are crap, get ones from medical labs, professional ones. Strangely they are cheaper than Ketostix!
Oh, and for those who are keen to know why I bought them:
http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Urine-Ketones-What-They-Mean-and-False-Positives.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK247/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2995232/
http://www.diabetesexplained.com/ketone-test.html
If you all took time to read, you will know that several things can disrupt the reading, but that's not exactly the point, when I spoke to my GP she said to keep measuring every day and if they all been showing beige or light pink and one day it's purple THEN something happened!
That's what I'm talking about.
Of course it's possible to be on the diet and the strips never accusing you to be in ketosis, but a lot of people have for instance mild cases of diabetes and don't event think about it and don't even suspect they have. For those people, if doing the diet things go all dandy and everything normal, and one day they wake up their level of ketonuria is so sky high, they can damage their kidneys and ultimately die because on healthy individuals ketosis is totally fine, but on people on those conditions is a definite no-no.
So, I decided to play safe even though I been tested for diabetes.
I bought strips from a medical lab (my mother is a nurse) and I get tested every morning for 7 different factors, ketones, glucose, etc etc.
I know my readings and everyone should get familiar with theirs too, so if one day mine is way off the scale I will check into it.
Paranoid? Maybe I am, but £5 is 20m work off my wages so I will just add that safety net.
Needless to say, don't rely on any test alone whatsoever, go to your GP once every 2-3 weeks for a check up.
Oh, and for those who are keen to know why I bought them:
http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Urine-Ketones-What-They-Mean-and-False-Positives.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK247/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2995232/
http://www.diabetesexplained.com/ketone-test.html
If you all took time to read, you will know that several things can disrupt the reading, but that's not exactly the point, when I spoke to my GP she said to keep measuring every day and if they all been showing beige or light pink and one day it's purple THEN something happened!
That's what I'm talking about.
Of course it's possible to be on the diet and the strips never accusing you to be in ketosis, but a lot of people have for instance mild cases of diabetes and don't event think about it and don't even suspect they have. For those people, if doing the diet things go all dandy and everything normal, and one day they wake up their level of ketonuria is so sky high, they can damage their kidneys and ultimately die because on healthy individuals ketosis is totally fine, but on people on those conditions is a definite no-no.
So, I decided to play safe even though I been tested for diabetes.
I bought strips from a medical lab (my mother is a nurse) and I get tested every morning for 7 different factors, ketones, glucose, etc etc.
I know my readings and everyone should get familiar with theirs too, so if one day mine is way off the scale I will check into it.
Paranoid? Maybe I am, but £5 is 20m work off my wages so I will just add that safety net.
Needless to say, don't rely on any test alone whatsoever, go to your GP once every 2-3 weeks for a check up.
Getslimquick
Been liberated by Exante!
I try to avoid aggression. This site is for support, and not for attacks I hope. To imply inadequate reading is unhelpful, - reading and experience are good tools for life.
I think it might be useful to be careful in making assumptions about other travellers level of knowledge and understanding. The Internet is a good source of advice but others have acquired their knowledge and understanding via more traditional methods of learning. And it's not a process that is ever compete, arrogance is a form of ignorance I think and over reliance on miscellaneous web sites can be misleading.
For you - whatever bobs your cork! And for me all varieties of sticks for measuring ketosis are fraught with difficulties. You make your choices and I will make mine.
Good luck with your weight loss journey and your other life goals. It always helps to share the journey in my view.
GSQ.
I think it might be useful to be careful in making assumptions about other travellers level of knowledge and understanding. The Internet is a good source of advice but others have acquired their knowledge and understanding via more traditional methods of learning. And it's not a process that is ever compete, arrogance is a form of ignorance I think and over reliance on miscellaneous web sites can be misleading.
For you - whatever bobs your cork! And for me all varieties of sticks for measuring ketosis are fraught with difficulties. You make your choices and I will make mine.
Good luck with your weight loss journey and your other life goals. It always helps to share the journey in my view.
GSQ.
TripleWhopper
Banned
Getslimquick said:
I didn't mean people did not took time to read, that would not make sense. I was referring if they took time to read the links I just posted, as they show information about the test.
I can't exactly miss reading about quantum physics if I don't know it exists already
know what I mean?That's why I posted some links to read up from some sources and know a bit more why I took the decision I did.
BordersGirl
Feeling great in 2012!
I can only state my own experience in that they work for me and show when I'm in ketosis. If I'm restarting then I'll use to them to check when I'm in ketosis, or when I've had something off plan, but if I'm in ketosis and sticking to the diet then I don't bother with them as I know that once I'm in I will stay in until I eat something that takes me out of ketosis.
