Urine Dipsticks

[NeylasMom]

I have strips that test pH in urine and saliva for the dogs, but only just now realized that they make ones that test a variety of factors including specific gravity, indicators of bacterial infection, etc. How did I not know this?!

 

Does anyone use these at home? I'm really wishing I had had them the last few months so I could have kept an eye on Z's SG and checked for infection periodically.

 

Moving forward I'm just going to use them periodically to have a sort of "at home" baseline for each girl. I obviously wouldn't use them to self diagnose at home, but I can certainly see them being useful for helping to gauge when a vet visit it necessary with the caveat that I know they aren't 100% reliable. Especially for Violet - being able to check for blood and protein in her urine when I suspect she's having a mild rhabdo episode (like I suspect happened last night) - would be really useful. Or being able to see bacteria and knowing she probably has a UTI and that explains why she was guzzling water last night would be a big relief.

Edited September 27, 2016 by NeylasMom

[MaryJane]

I knew about the dipsticks because of my lab background but, I had suggested them for a few people on this forum years ago - this was for people that had "kidney dogs".

 

I was using them for one of my dogs who had an acute kidney incident - I would use the first morning urine specimen and if protein was showing, he would get less protein that day in his food.

 

I don't know what method they are using to measure the specific gravity on the dipstick ... so not sure how much I would rely on that.

 

I found one on Amazon - much cheaper than what I had used ..

 

https://www.amazon.com/Parameter-Urinalysis-Reagent-Strips-strips/dp/B01IPEDNIS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474997808&sr=8-1&keywords=urine+dipsticks

 

I took a minute and went to google for dipstick measurements of specific gravity and this was one of the first articles that I found -- suggests that maybe it does not correlate well with teh refractometer method

 

http://adc.bmj.com/content/85/2/155.full

Edited September 27, 2016 by MaryJane

[NeylasMom]

Yeah, those are the ones I ordered. Care of the Racing & Retired Greyhound recommended 2 brands that seem to be well regarded in actual research - Chemstrips and Multistix - but neither was available on Amazon. I think there is the potential for greater inaccuracy with the cheaper ones, but I figured I will start with those and if I find them useful and actually use them routinely I can upgrade later.

[Remolacha]

This is a total squirrel, but reading your topic title my first thought was, another election thread!

[NeylasMom]

This is a total squirrel, but reading your topic title my first thought was, another election thread!

[tbhounds]

Not accurate for many of the values. Only use for glu, ket, protein, blood, ph and bili :-)

Edited September 27, 2016 by tbhounds

[NeylasMom]

Not accurate for many of the values. Only use for glu, ket, protein, blood, ph and bili :-)

What makes you say that? I actually did some digging (anyone who knows me at all would have seen this coming ) and read some research articles that looked at their accuracy in predicting bacterial infection and while not failproof, it did seem like using both the nitrite and leukocyte values together would give a good idea. These studies were looking at both sensitivity and specificity. Again, not going to be 100%, but seemed to me like 2 negatives would warrant a wait and see approach, whereas one or the other and especially both being positive would warrant and vet visit and "real" testing.

 

I did not look into the accuracy of the specific gravity yet.

Edited September 27, 2016 by NeylasMom

[tbhounds]

Nope-never accurate -we never even read those results. Usg inaccurate too--only use a refractometer.

[MaryJane]

What makes you say that? I actually did some digging (anyone who knows me at all would have seen this coming ) and read some research articles that looked at their accuracy in predicting bacterial infection and while not failproof, it did seem like using both the nitrite and leukocyte values together would give a good idea. These studies were looking at both sensitivity and specificity. Again, not going to be 100%, but seemed to me like 2 negatives would warrant a wait and see approach, whereas one or the other and especially both being positive would warrant and vet visit and "real" testing.

 

I did not look into the accuracy of the specific gravity yet.

 

 

I took another look at the specs on this and the nitrate looks like it is going to give a false negative rather than a false positive when it errors so, if you see it react, chances are there is something there. It also seems to be aimed at bacteria like E. Coli which causes many UTIs. So this might be worthwhile for the purpose that you intend. While I can not imagine a vet hospital using this as a conclusive test to treat a dog for a UTI, I think it would be useful in home checking to see if you need to follow up with a vet to do a urinalysis and culture.

[Batmom]

Same strips that are used for people, so can't imagine they'd be that inaccurate for dogs. People protocol is basically test with a strip, start UTI positives on antibiotics if there are symptoms, do a culture. If there are other positives, you'd do further testing.