A maker of glucose strips for diabetics, Abbott Diabetes Care, along with the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) have issued a recall of a number of different brands of glucose testing strips. This drug product recall comes after reports that the strips were resulting in falsely low blood sugar readings.
The pharmaceutical company stated that the false reading pose two different health threats to those using the glucose strips: that those seeing falsely low readings will treat themselves for low blood sugar, while those who see normal readings will not treat themselves for high blood sugar. Both scenarios could lead to patient harm.
The company and FDA have stated that the recall encompasses about 359 million test strips, which were marketed to health professionals and consumers. The brand names of the test strips include Precision Xceed Pro, Precision Xtra, Medisense Optium, Optium, OptiumEZ, and RellOn Ultima.
The FDA has instructions for those who use glucose strips to test blood sugar or that believe they may be using the defective strips:
• Do not stop testing for blood sugar even if you think you may have defective strips.
• Call Abbott at 1-800-448-5234 for English and 1-800-709-7010 for Spanish to determine whether or not you may be using defective strips and to request replacements strips.
• If you believe your strips are defective, attempt to find another method of testing your glucose.
• If your strips are taking more than five seconds to register a number, you may be using defective strips.
• Diabetes patients should be especially cautious of low blood sugar readings and familiarize themselves with the signs and symptoms of low blood sugar.