I started my "strip tests" today - I only got 4 done because, well that's all I could get to pee

Within the 24hrs prior to the test, all four gliders were fed: unsweetened applesauce, whole oats, wheat germ, lowfat plain yogurt, calcium fortified orange juice, peas, carrots, corn, green beans, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, mealworms, and vanilla yogurt drops. They were also given The Pet Glider vitamin supplement.

Results were as follows:

Sekwaf - approx 3mos - 51g
Leukocytes: Negative
Nitrites: Negative
Urobilinogen: Normal
Protein: Trace
pH: 7.0
Blood: Negative
Specific Gravity: 1.025
Keytone: Negative
Bilirubin: Negative
Glucose: Negative

Stewie - 3yrs 9mos - 156g
Leukocytes: Negative
Nitrites: Negative
Urobilinogen: Normal
Protein: Trace
pH: 7.0
Blood: Negative
Specific Gravity: 1.025
Keytone: Negative
Bilirubin: Negative
Glucose: Negative

Panda - 1yr 7mos - 128g
Leukocytes: Negative
Nitrites: Negative
Urobilinogen: Normal
Protein: Trace
pH: 7.0-7.5
Blood: Negative
Specific Gravity: 1.010-1.015
Keytone: Negative
Bilirubin: Negative
Glucose: Negative

Little - 3yrs 1mo - 167g
Leukocytes: Unknown (test strip showed a color between Negative and Trace)
Nitrites: Negative
Urobilinogen: Normal
Protein: Trace
pH: 7.0-7.5
Blood: Negative
Specific Gravity: 1.015
Keytone: Negative
Bilirubin: Negative
Glucose: Negative

You'll notice some trends across all four of the gliders tested. Normal pH seems to be around 7.0-7.5, though minkasmom gets a different avg with her clan. There was also trace protein in all four gliders - not sure if this is normal, I'd like to see what the rest of my gliders look like as well as what other people get with their strips - and I'll ask Dr. Kate. The one test that did throw me a bit was the leukocyte test on Little. Little is Stewie's son, Fawkes' nephew. The color was a pale pink, to be negative it should have been pale creme/yellow, to be trace it should have been pale orange. Little has no lumps (at least that I can feel), but I am going to email Dr. Kate about this anyways and probably recheck him in about a week. It could also have been a chemical from another test that ran over into that one. The specific gravity varied also, but I'm not sure what that is, I'm going to have to research that one.

Just for interests sake, I did a strip with tap water:

Leukocytes: Negative
Nitrites: Negative
Urobilinogen: Normal
Protein: Negative
pH: 6.5
Blood: Negative
Specific Gravity: 1.005
Keytone: Negative
Bilirubin: Negative
Glucose: Negative

will be interesting to note variances with Minkasmom....more importantly how ever did you get them to pee on your strips instead of the usual "human"?????lol

Lol - When I took them out of the pouch, I put them in the wheel & put the sanitized bowl from the scale under the wheel to catch what was to come

I was imagining you chasing after them with a strip in your hand......lol

The tapwater had a ph of 6.5?

That surprises me...more acidic than I'd expect!

Thanks for posting your findings, this is interesting!

back to a serious note.....is there anyone else besides you and Minkasmom who have under taken this challenge.....it will be interesting to see what the doc says....I know that in humans, white blood cells (leukocytes) in the urine is a sign of a UTI but have absolutely no idea if that translates over to gliders.....for humans, the first thing they do is repeat the test....

I also have my strips but have not yet started testing. I'm also going to make a chart that each person can copy to input their data on, then we can collect them and compile all of it.

Raider goes home tomorrow so I'll probably work on all this on Monday.

Linda, this is the brand that I use & a website where they can be acquired "relatively" cheap:

http://www.imed.com/shop/detail.cfm?sku=...&zmap=k1039

GoGo, this information gathering is NOT limited to just a handful of people...as a matter of fact, I would WELCOME anyone and everyone who wants to join in on this research to do so! Anything that we as glider owners can do to keep our gliders healthy is something I'm sure we're ALL ABOUT!

After the initial purchase of the test strips, the next step is to keep track of the results. Writing down information about the name of the glider, date of testing, weight of the glider, results, and what specific items were fed to each glider the 24 hours prior to the testing are where we're beginning our gathering. At the VERY LEAST, it's an "in-home health check"....who knows where it'll go from here? I'm hopeful that it'll be another tool to help our vets with early and effective diagnosis of trouble if it rears its ugly head. I'll be anxious to hear what Dr. Kate says about the leukocyte readings in Little, too!

Monster's pH results being a little higher than mine also concerned me. I asked that she find out WITH HER TEST STRIPS where her water pH reading was...for the sake of getting a "starting point" as it were.

This is going to be a very interesting study. Off we all go into a new frontier of medical research...

This is where I bought my strips from - http://www.biousa.com/ur10sg1010pa.html

I will be sending this info off to Dr. Kate tonight so she has something to read with her coffee in the morning - hopefully she can give some insight to the leukocytes and the protein.

I just put my order in for the strips. I am willing to help with this research. What is all the data that needs to be collected ? Also, who should we send the results to?
Paula

Record the date, name, age, weight, food eaten within 24hrs, then all ten test results.

Just a note - each test, though on the same strip, takes a different amount of time to develop - so make sure you are reding thm at the right time. Also, you cannot 'keep' the strips to compare results because the colors change over time (even just 15 min) & eventually are invalid readings.

I don't think we have organized any 'gathering of information' yet. I have heard that there is a group that wants to do a study with the strips - I will contact them & see if that is the case, and if so, what they want us to do with the data - for now, I guess just post here...

Wow! This could be invaluable information. Gina I just discussed this thread with my mom who works in the research & developement department for a major clinical lab. She wanted to know if the values change from a glider to a human. If they would be the same we could diagnose a UTI at home! Along with so many other things. Can you imagine how much heartache we could potentially save ourselves by monitoring our babies on a regular basis. I will be very interested in Dr. Kate answer. I will order my strips and will help with the research too!

I am pretty good with gathering and organizing data. I work in IT. I can volunteer to collect the data, organize and post results.

Let me know if you guys want me to do it.

Paula

I am ordering the strips Monster did and will start as soon as they get here.

This is exciting! I will let you know when I hear back from SUGAR. If they are going to collect the data, then we'll let them tell us how to organize it, etc. If they're not going to do it, then we'll go from there.

I did look up specific gravity & it appears to be the density (simply stated) - not sure if this would vary based on how hydrated the glider is when the test is done. I just emailed Dr. Kate & I included this in my questions.

I also edited my first post in this thread to include ages, weights, and food within 24hrs.

I'm sure it would make me feel better to have these on hand and be able to do this test at the first sign of anything wrong with any of my gliders prior to getting them in to the vet the next morning. I'm wondering if this is something that should be done weekly, monthly, quarterly, semiannually or annually if there is no specific health concerns or out of the ordinary behavior/symptoms of any kind.

I too will be ordering the strips and am looking forward to the demo at the OH gathering so I can know I'm doing it right.

Gina-how did you sterilize the bowl you used for specimen collection?

You can get little alcohol prep pads at Walmart in a box of like 100 - they come wrapped like a moist towelette.

I wiped the pee out of the bowl, wiped it down with an alcohol pad, then dried with a kleenex.

Probably not the 'lab' procedure, but it was the best I could think of on the spot...

Denise & I were thinking that when you're initially figuring out your 'baseline', weekly might be the way to go. After one month of weekly, I'll probably switch to monthly. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what I'll end up doing yet...

My strips are on the way to start the testing on my crew as well.

Taking a quick minute to pop in over lunch...

Adri, the question you raised is a very valid one. I know in the case of the GLUCOSE strips, it doesn't matter whose pee you use (animal or human)...high glucose is the same across the board. I'm not sure this would apply with the regent strips though. This would be a question for a (human) doctor to answer.

Angel: My suggestion is that you do weekly tests for the first month to "establish your baseline"....then after that, maybe once a month unless you see signs of "trouble". What matters most is that you collect it the same way, the same time of day, & make note of everything to eliminate as many "variables" as possible.

I'd also recommend to everyone coming on board that you do a test on your WATER SOURCE (bottled, tap, whatever) and make note of that info as well so you'll know that info as well if you have a different pH reading from others. (does that make sense to anyone besides me?)

Gotta fly away again....why can't the REST of the day go as fast as lunchtime?????

this is very interesting to me (being in the medical field) and have had many teachers over the years who believed every thing we needed to know about the health of a person could be discovered by looking at urine and skin....

Don't want to go off topic but this is a generous offer, someone involved in this should get back to her on this!

I think it's a super offer, I think maybe talk to Gina and Denise and see if they are already doing that or not, It would be wonderful of you to do it.
You are testing too, right?.

Yes, I ordered my test strips on Sunday. If you guys want, just send the test results to me and I will compile the data.

Paula

How accurate do you feel with taking a sample from the beneath the wheel? I'm just wondering if the urine in the wheel could be cross cantiminated with the other gliders urine since those in that cage would use the same wheel, then not giving an accurate reading for each glider.

I agree with you Nancy, and I tried my best to avoid that with a baby wipe in between (dried with a kleenex). You're absolutely right, there will be cross contamination, but unfortunatly, I am not so skilled in coaxing the urine out of a glider yet! I have heard some say that their gliders pee in the scale on their own, well mine will barely stay in the scale, so I have little chance of catching pee there. The usual place for my gliders to pee is down my back, and thats one place that I just can't collect from. I will be working on keeping them in the scale for longer periods - maybe we can work our way up to "pee length"...

On that note, I did manage one more strip tonight, taken the same way. Here are the results (Note that she ate the same as the first group, minus the mealies, plus a pine nut):

Isis - 2yrs 4mos - 111g
Leukocytes: Negative
Nitrites: Negative
Urobilinogen: Normal
Protein: Trace
pH: 7.0
Blood: Negative
Specific Gravity: 1.025
Keytone: Negative
Bilirubin: Negative
Glucose: Negative

Haven't heard back from Dr. Kate yet, but crossing my fingers for tomorrow...

Trace urine protein can be seen in normals. Kidney injury will usually yield higher amounts of protein than trace. There are also cloacal stool contaminents that can add a bit of urine protein.

Keep in mind that urine multi-stix are nice screens, but they aren't diagnostic of UTI, don't guide treatment, and don't replace the information that a urine culture yields in evaluating for a UTI.

Doing lots of normal urine dips won't add much knowledge. Dipping sick glider urine will be more fruitful. If somebody wants to start a database, the long-term outcomes of how the glider does, which were treated with antibiotics, other signs and symptoms, and other information is very important. The various data from the strip alone won't provide much insight.

Won't it let us know what is normal for our gliders, thus giving us a baseline?



Wouldn't we learn more about the sick gliders if we had a baseline to compare to?

You are absolutely right! This is just about the greatest tool we MAY have in knowing there is a problem early on and not have to wait till our gliders show symptoms to get them to a vet and running the risk it maybe too late.

I heard back from Dr. Kate, here is what she had to share with us:

Ok - in brief

Specific gravity and pH both depend on lots of things, diet and genetics being the leading ones. If you eat an orange today, your pH will be lower tomorrow. If you eat spinach today, your pH tomorrow will be higher - its just how things work. Specific gravity is only a concern if it hovers in the 1.010-1.012 range but the specific gravity on strips is totally unreliable. You need a refractometer to accurately measure urine specific gravity. (i never trust the strips).
Traces of protein in any animal's urine is not likely a problem unless the specific gravity (See above) is less than 1.010... then we start to wonder a little bit.
The leukocyte spot on the test stips might as well be cut off - 80% of them are false positive and the only way to accurately identify leukocytes in urine is to spin the urine down and evaluate the sediment under a microscope so I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. We don't use a strip that has leukocytes on it becuase it is such an unreliable indicator or reality that it's a waste.
BTW - tap water should have a specific gravity of 1.000 :-)

Interesting results, tho and I really like your approach... besides, trending data over time may actually give us some good baseline information to work with in an area that has been largely unstudied by anyone I know. Did you forward this on to Dr. Tristan? I did just in case.

Dr. kate