CURO-L7 Professional Grade Blood Cholesterol Testing with Home KIT - All-in-One Test Device, Test Strips 5ea, Lancets, and EziTube Rod Included

First, my Curio-L7 results vs Lipid panel done by a lab. Same day, after fasting, blood samples taken about 20 minutes apart from each other:Desc. Lab Result Curio-L7 ResultTC 192 181TG 269 264HDL 37 34LDL 117 94.2LDL/HDL N/A 2.77TC/HDL 5.2 5.32Non-HDL 155 147Many people seem to be using this incorrectly.1. Yes, it requires a lot of blood compared to say, a home glucose meter. It's not easy or pleasant to do, however if you watch the video on how to collect the blood (keep the collection tube horizontal, laying in on a raised surface), and you use the lancer provided (at first I was using the lancer to my glucose meter which seems to have a much thinner needle, therefore I was able to retrieve less blood before it started coagulating) then it's still a LOT less blood than they take at the lab by sticking a very large needle (compared to the lancing needle) in your vein, not to mention the cost, time, and inconvenience of going to a lab.2. Make sue that you only insert the chip when they say, make sure to open the door when the unit tells you, and only close it when it tells you, etc. Once you have done this CORRECTLY once or twice it's really no big deal at all. I DID waste a few test strips by not following all of these these directions at first.For me, the cost savings and convenience of this meter is well worth it. For me, the results are close enough. Only LDL was off more than I would hope, but the others were within a very tolerable range. My numbers are above, so decide for yourself.The one knock I will give it is that it does not come with a carrying/storage case, which another, much more expensive unit with fancy colored touch screen had. The results from that unit, which I have since returned, were WAY off, to much to be useful.

This product is not difficult to set up or use but the results are way too different compared to the lab results. For example my TG result from lab was 294 but this machine showed me 224 or next day 81 units. I would have loved to have it if the results would have been only few units up or down different but this machine is not accurate at all.

The media could not be loaded. As you'll notice from my video, getting enough blood for this test is sometimes non-trivial. Its's a thirsty meter. It's also very picky (as are most of these kinds of testers) about exact ORDER of how things are done...My first test time didn't go so well... came out with Error E1, which meant wrongly inserted or bad test strip. Turned out, I should have COVER CLOSED when I inserted strip, then OPENED it to drip blood on it, then CLOSED it again.So here are the corrected steps:[ When new: prepare the meter with Date / Time / Code Strip etc ]Every other time is essentially the same step sequence:- Insert BLANK test strip, then when it says OPE:- OPEN cover door- Red light in the test strip will BLINK, meaning "drip blood here"- Lance yourself, fill TUBE with blood up to BLACK LINE (and it does take quite a bit)- Squeeze the little BULB on the tube to DRIP blood onto the red light / test strip- CLOSE cover door when it says CLO; wait THREE minutes- SEE your readingMy error (resulting in wasting one of these fairly spendy test strips!!) was that I put blood on the test strip BEFORE inserting it... so I got things in the wrong order. The machine didn't like that, so it ignored that strip. No recovery; start again.Anyway... The thing does work, but I wish it would give me better results. That, I guess is up to DIET, EXERCISE and MEDS... (and in my case, a long line of heredity that lends even vegetarians like me to higher cholesterol, just based on inheritance. : (Meter: GOOD; Results: NOT SO GOOD; My ability to follow directions: NEEDS IMPROVEMENT!

Today I got a reading for TC, TG, and HDL, but then for the next values of LDL, LDL/HDL, TG/HDL, non-HDL the screen read as in the picture. It looks like 0 - 8 but with the bottom bar cut off. So I am not sure what it really is. There is nothing in the instruction book explaining this.This machine was working great the first few times, but now I notice that the collection tube tends to get stuck or slow in accepting the blood at the half way point. So that means it's a struggle to fill up to the fill line. I worry that if the fill process slows down too much that it might be creating a clog at the start of the collection tube. Some times there is a tiny bubble in the tube. So I just wonder if I failed to get a complete reading because of there not being enough blood? I did fill to the fill line, and when I deposited the blood on the strip, it beeped and told me to close the lid. I figured that meant it got the right amount of blood. So what is this all about?I've been trying to run hot water on my hands and swing my arms a few times prior to poking my finger in an attempt to get the blood to flow faster. Still I see the collection tube getting sort of clogged at the tip. It wastes tubes if I have start all over because a given tube won't accept enough blood.Other than that issue, I like the ease of use of the machine itself and the fact that one can get readings for TC, TG, HDL, and LDL. It feels like a good quality machine, but I feel that collection tube needs to be improved.UPDATEI have been getting the hang of it. I squeeze my finger to get a big blood drop, collect that, then keep on repeating. I notice that when I tilt the collection tube upright that's when an air bubble can form so it's best to keep it level and only tilt slightly when putting the tube at the blood drop. Once an air bubble forms there is danger of a clot forming in the tube and then it's possible that the blood gets sticky in the tube and won't come out. I wish we could by extra tubes for when mistakes happen.