Hey all, We finally purchased an AlphaTrak blood glucose meter for the shelter. We LOVE having our own meter for the kids. It takes such a tiny bubble of blood to get a quick reading so we can do it quite often if we have a kid who needs to be closely monitored or who we have questions about. However, it started giving us frequent Error 3 & Error 1 messages. It was very frustrating. After searching the net & the company's site, I finally called Abbott Labs and talked w/ Dr Evans. He knew exactly what the problem was & helped me solve it quickly & easily. YEA! It's caused by some kind of contamination inside where the strip contacts the electrodes. Maybe some of you are having the same problem so here's the procedure he had me use: -get a new strip -insert into meter and withdraw 20 times -flip it end on end and insert the butterfly end into the meter and withdraw 20 times -tap bottom of meter lightly on table/counter -throw away strip Voila!!!!! It works!!!!!!! Since we wasted many, many strips (figuring it was user error), he also sent me a new vile of them. Dr. Evans told me to call back if I still had problems. No need but good to know. Great Customer Service! [Posted in FML 7384]