A Ketone Meter Before Yom Kippur – Four Notes

A member wrote to me this week. She wants a ketone meter before Yom Kippur, the one I recommended last year is not sold where she lives, and she found a different one online. Does it matter which one she buys?

Everything I would answer is already written. When ketone testing is actually needed during a fast, why urine strips and breath analyzers are not the tool for this, and the shinui for pricking – all of it is in last year's post, and none of it has changed:

Ketone Testing During the Yom Kippur Fast

Read that one. Four things to add to it this year.

In this post:

• The meter is still the same meter
• Outside America, buy whatever you can get
• Check the expiration date
• Open it this week

The meter is still the same meter

The KETO-MOJO GK+ kit is still what I would buy, still around $50, still comes with the meter, 10 ketone strips, 10 glucose strips, lancets and a lancing device. Nothing new has come along in the last year that beats it for this purpose.

Outside America, buy whatever you can get

This is the part that came out of her letter, and it applies to more of you than I realized.

Any meter that measures ketones in the blood will do the job. They all measure the same thing, beta-hydroxybutyrate, on the same scale, in mmol/L. A 1.5 is a 1.5 on every brand. The Keto-Mojo is not special; it is the one that happens to be easy to buy in America.

In Israel, ask your pharmacy for the FreeStyle Optium Neo. It reads glucose and ketones in one device. The ketone strips run around ₪140 for ten. Ask your kupah whether they cover them before you pay out of pocket.

In Europe, the same underlying meter is sold under local labels. The one this member found in Switzerland is one of them, and it is fine. Do not spend a week hunting a specific brand name when the fast is in six days.

Check the expiration date

This is where families actually get caught, and it has nothing to do with which meter you own.

A ketone meter gets bought during one scare, used twice, and put in a drawer. One year later there is a meter in the house and not one usable strip in it, and nobody finds out until the afternoon they need it.

Check the date on the box when it arrives. Check it again every year before Yom Kippur.

Open it this week

Not Monday afternoon. Do one test now, while you feel fine. Learn how much blood it wants, how long it takes, what the screen says, and where the strips are kept.

A meter still sealed in its box on Yom Kippur afternoon, being opened for the first time by somebody who already feels sick, is not a meter. It is a box.

If you are ordering online, order today. Yom Kippur starts Sunday evening.

– Rabbi Hirsch Meisels