Customer Reviews

CardioChek Portable Blood Test System

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

We have owned this device for many years and use it fairly regularly. My boyfriend doesn't like doctors, so it's good to have the CardioChek device for nearly instant home testing whenever we wish. It's great!

The device is about the size of a long pack of cigarettes and is SUPER easy to use. You can buy a variety of test strips for it. We have the total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and Triglycerides tests. From these, you can also calculate your LDL levels quite easily.

You turn on the CardioChek, slide in whichever strip you want to use, and then add in a drop of blood. We have an AutoLancet which is a one-button push pen-like item that easily gets a drop of blood without much pain at all. Then you wait maybe 30 seconds, and the device tells you the exact number.

We haven't had any problems with this system at all. If anything, the problem we have is that I don't bleed easily and my blood refuses to leave my body :) I find that running my hand or foot under warm water for a few minutes helps out. My toes seem to work better than my fingers, and are less sensitive, too.

Highly recommended, we haven't had any problems with this at all in the many years of use.

This is a great device. It's very easy to use, gets results in just minutes and saves on trips to the Dr's office. You check for more than just blood sugar,but to keep an eye on your cholesteral. I paid more for mine didn't know Amazon carried these, they are a much better price here including the test strips. If you go to the company website you'll pay more and the best part is you can do it in your own home first thing in the morning after the 12 hr fast instead of waiting to get to a clinic or Dr's office.

I have been using this for quite some time now and do not have any problems with this. I love this product. This is very simple to use. If you are using it for the first time, you may end up wasting a couple of tests trying to figure it out. Once you get a hang of it, you will love it. This is even better than the discontinued LifeStream product, because you can check your HDL, Triglycerides and Total Cholesterol with the same product. Only down side is that the strips are expensive. On the other hand, this is an excellent device to monitor your Cholesterol in between doctor visits.

I have this. It is very easy to use and understand. It is similar to many blood testing devices. So nice to be able to do a quick test on cholesterol levels without all the waiting at the doctors office. It is not a replacement for going to the doctor, but a nice test for between visits when you wonder how you are doing.

Please Note: this tester is listed more than once on this site, therefore there are more reviews available.

I am concerned about this tester's accuracy, or rather lack of. I have used it a number of times and compared it to my clinic Lipid Panel results, and the readings have been WAY off, more than once. This tester may be good to show patterns/trends with your levels, but I would not count on it for accuracy. If you read the other reviews I mentioned you will find several people have noticed this also.

Early on I discovered room lighting may be a problem as well. I was sitting next to my nightstand lamp and I received an error message that said 'too much light' so I moved away from the lamp and it worked. This tester works on a light transparency method and so I'm inclined to believe even your room lighting may effect your accuracy.

If your levels seem to be in an unhealthy range I would hope you can follow-up with your clinic and verify the results just to be sure...good luck.

Recently I had a lipid panel test. After reviewing with my doctor, I decided to purchase a blood glucose meter and the Cardiocheck Cholesterol Meter. I decided to monitor my glucose and cholesterol as I try to improve my lipid panels for the next time I have a lipid panel test in five months.
Upon unpacking the unit and checking all components, I revise the unit put the batteries on. My first impression was that the unit, the screens and the strips looked more like a toy than a home-medical device. I think that the materials used, the dimensions and LCD display look cheap, not that the price is cheap. This contrast poorly when compared to any blood glucose monitor construction and price.
I decided to take it for a test drive, so I used the included pink boxy lancets. It is a pre-loaded lancet that you need to press hard against your finger until the raised cover is pushed inside and the lancet is activated. It is extremely painful as you have to push hard and the needle is thick. I used it once and switched to the lancets I use for my blood glucose meter because my finger tip was bruised for an entire day after one use. You might need to prick your finger(s) several times for each of the Total Cholesterol, HDL and Triglyceride tests. If you have used lancets from other companies you will find that many companies design their product to make it painless and the customer to use their product over others. I do not think that was the case with these lancets. In addition, the capillaries collect enough blood for one single test, so you know those will go fast.
The test strips are a plastic with a window on which to deposit the blood. These windows have a paper-like recipient with the reactive agent that changes color with the blood. The color change in the bottom of the paper and it is the intensity in color change that the meter measures with reflective photometry. The test is susceptible to room temperature and lighting. After several tests with the monitor, I found that the results vary enormously and more significantly the readings are way off from the lab results I got a couple of weeks ago and cholesterol does not change dramatically in such a short period of time.
I am returning the unit. I think that I could do better with a quarterly professional lipid panel test.

If your cholesterol is a little high and you want a regular monitor for checking it...this is the machine you need. It's accurate and you can buy the test strips at most pharmacies. They cost on the average between 30 and 100 dollars depending on how many you need. When you weigh this against how much it costs to get your cholesterol checked at the doctor, it's worth it!

Save your money. The CardioChek is very misleading and worthless. My experience. Several years ago bought the CardioChek meter when Lifestream another manufacturer of cholesterol monitoring equipment went out of business. The CardioChek meter always read low for total cholesterol and LDL compared to lab results. Returned meter to CardioChek for check out. The "new" meter read low and would not give repeatable results either. The company sent a "calibration" standard but would not tell me what the values were of the total cholesterol, etc. The standard was a pass or fail standard. I'm a retired chemist and calibration standards have discrete values not a range of 20 or 30 points for total cholesterol. The company said my blood draw was too small. Phooey. I had blood everywhere. Finally discarded the CardioChek in the trash. Fast forward. Dropped by the hospital for a cholesterol check this week. The were using a CardioChek PA system for the "quickie" cholesterol check plus a regular lab analysis. The hospital tech drew blood for both the CardioChek and the normal lab analysis. CardioChek Total Cholesterol 139 mg/DL; lab analysis: 196 mg/DL which is about normal based on a several recent lab tests. A cholesterol reading being lower by 29% is very poor. The real problem with CardioChek is the meter is give misleading low readings. The real shame is that CardioChek bought the mailing list of the bankrupt Lifestream company but did not think enough of the Lifestream technology to buy it also; Lifestream technology worked and was within about 3% of the lab results.

A good machine to have but the cost is too much because you have to order everything else separately

I monitor my cholesterol for various reasons and wanted to figure out what makes my cholesterol go up or down so I figured I'd try a home tester to help me fine tune my habits. I assumed that even if the home tester would be inaccurate, it would still help me by showing me a general upwards or downwards trend.

Unfortunately, this machine could not even do that. Because the test results are wildly different even between two tests performed within minutes of each other.

I also compared the test results to actual medical lab test results that I ran on the same day.

Say my lab results on that month were 205, CardioChek then tells me (multiple attempts with multiple strips): 178, 139, 173, 166

As you can see, not only are they very inaccurate, they aren't even consistent. And I got the same kind of wildly fluctuating results with the Total Cholesterol Strips and the HDL Strips.

I tried taking blood in different ways, I followed the instructions to the letter, and nothing improved.

To be fair, their phone technical support was very helpful, but after a few talks with them, nothing improved:
- First they gave me tips on how perform tests better and it didn't help.
- Then they sent me new strips free of charge, but these didn't help.
- Then they wanted to see if they can fix the machine but since I don't live in the US, all of the shipping hassles I had to make via a third-party were simply too much to handle and too expensive/time-consuming. Plus, I saw that other people had similar experiences so I figured it's not my specific machine that is the problem and gave up.