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Accurate glucose monitor
- Thread starter Sulfate
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Docb
Moderator
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
They all have to meet a common standard so no meter is more accurate than any other.... provided they meet the standard.
So best base your choice on gizmos, colour, or whatever. Most look at cost, especially the running cost. Once you have bought the meter then you are hooked because each meter uses its own strips and you have to buy the strips to match the meter. Strips vary in price by quite a lot.
I'm sure someone will be along with the current best value meters - I get mine on prescription so I am not the best person to advise.
So best base your choice on gizmos, colour, or whatever. Most look at cost, especially the running cost. Once you have bought the meter then you are hooked because each meter uses its own strips and you have to buy the strips to match the meter. Strips vary in price by quite a lot.
I'm sure someone will be along with the current best value meters - I get mine on prescription so I am not the best person to advise.
Thankyou 🙂
rebrascora
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- Type 1
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- She/Her
Focusing on accuracy can get you into difficulties with BG monitoring. You are looking more for consistency and reliability and economy of use if you are self funding. For those reasons the Gluco Navii and the Spirit Tee2 are most often recommended by people here on the forum who self fund. There are other slightly cheaper options but we have had one of two posts of people having problems with them but those 2 seem to be popular and dependable.
The thing to understand is that the decimal point in the readings is not actually indicating that the device is accurate to that level of measurement. You could test the same drop of blood on 2 different test strips in the space of less than a minute and get 2 readings that might be several tenths different and different fingers will almost certainly give slightly different results. This happens with even very expensive meters as well as cheaper ones and mostly the greater expense is down the additional features on the meter rather than improved accuracy. It is almost a leap of faith to just accept the reading you get from each individual test and then look for trends over the longer term as this is what works.
The thing to understand is that the decimal point in the readings is not actually indicating that the device is accurate to that level of measurement. You could test the same drop of blood on 2 different test strips in the space of less than a minute and get 2 readings that might be several tenths different and different fingers will almost certainly give slightly different results. This happens with even very expensive meters as well as cheaper ones and mostly the greater expense is down the additional features on the meter rather than improved accuracy. It is almost a leap of faith to just accept the reading you get from each individual test and then look for trends over the longer term as this is what works.
rebrascora
Well-Known Member
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- Type 1
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- She/Her
That is probably about as cheap as you will get and as said it is one of the tried and tested (by members here) reliable ones, so I would stick with it in your situation.
Thanks so much for your really helpful reply. I didn't realise that even different fingers can give different readings! I took 2 readings this morning straight after the first one and it had changed. I thought my reading before I had eaten anything at about 8 30am was 6.1 which seemed high? What can cause high morning readings?sorry for all the questions. I'm feeling a bit anxious as I've been on Sertraline for 4 weeks now and my readings are very varied! Yesterday I had a snack at 4.30pm of livlife locarb bread, a few olives & small piece of mancego cheese and it was 5.0 before and 4.8 two hours later! Then this morning 6.1, but I did eat very late last night 9pm
rebrascora
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- Type 1
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- She/Her
Sounds like your snack of low carb bread, olives and cheese really suited you. I love Manchego cheese with olives but Lidl haven't been selling it recently. The slight reduction 2 hours later is nothing to get concerned about as levels naturally go up and down all the time. 5.0 and 4.8 are essentially the same. Your body is using and releasing glucose all the time so fluctuation is absolutely normal and getting the same reading all the time would be the time to worry.... either your meter had stuck or you were dead. It is a constant balancing act by the pancreas producing insulin and liver releasing glucose and of course the food you eat releasing glucose and your organs and muscles using it, to keep things in range. There are something like 42 factors which impact BG levels so expecting it to be the same all the time is unrealistic. That is why we have a range of what to aim for...... which is 4-7 on waking and before meals and no more than 8.5 2 hours after meals.
Your liver is like a back up battery to keep your organs supplied with glucose in the absence of food, so that you don't die if you don't eat for a few hours or even a few days. It stores and releases glucose and in particular on a morning, it releases a bit extra to give you energy to start your day. I prehistoric times this enabled us to have the energy to hunt or gather our first meal of the day, but it doesn't take much effort to walk into the kitchen and open the fridge so depending upon when you tested, it may well have risen by a couple of mmols, so you may well have been 4.1 before you woke up or during the night but then your liver released extra glucose and next thing you know you are 6.1. If it is any consolation, my liver is really effective at this and my BG can rise my 6mmols within the first hour of getting up if I don't inject insulin to correct it. Clearly it thinks the wooly mammoth in my area are more challenging to hunt down, so I need extra!! 🙄
If you are interested, try testing as soon as you wake up (test kit by the bed) and then after you have got up and got dressed but before breakfast. It might only be 15 mins but I would guess you levels will have risen. Sometimes this rise starts before we wake up which is referred to as Dawn Phenomenon and sometimes levels remain steady till we swing our legs out of bed and stand up, which is referred to as Foot on the Floor syndrome but they are essentially the same thing.... our liver dumping glucose into our blood stream to give us energy for the day ahead. Eating something switches off this function of the liver, so sometimes it can help to eat breakfast as soon after getting up as possible, but we are all individual, so you have to find(via testing) what works best for your body.
Your liver is like a back up battery to keep your organs supplied with glucose in the absence of food, so that you don't die if you don't eat for a few hours or even a few days. It stores and releases glucose and in particular on a morning, it releases a bit extra to give you energy to start your day. I prehistoric times this enabled us to have the energy to hunt or gather our first meal of the day, but it doesn't take much effort to walk into the kitchen and open the fridge so depending upon when you tested, it may well have risen by a couple of mmols, so you may well have been 4.1 before you woke up or during the night but then your liver released extra glucose and next thing you know you are 6.1. If it is any consolation, my liver is really effective at this and my BG can rise my 6mmols within the first hour of getting up if I don't inject insulin to correct it. Clearly it thinks the wooly mammoth in my area are more challenging to hunt down, so I need extra!! 🙄
If you are interested, try testing as soon as you wake up (test kit by the bed) and then after you have got up and got dressed but before breakfast. It might only be 15 mins but I would guess you levels will have risen. Sometimes this rise starts before we wake up which is referred to as Dawn Phenomenon and sometimes levels remain steady till we swing our legs out of bed and stand up, which is referred to as Foot on the Floor syndrome but they are essentially the same thing.... our liver dumping glucose into our blood stream to give us energy for the day ahead. Eating something switches off this function of the liver, so sometimes it can help to eat breakfast as soon after getting up as possible, but we are all individual, so you have to find(via testing) what works best for your body.
Thankyou again🙂
While all meters have to meet the same (lowish) standard, that doesn't mean that they're all equally accurate/inaccurate. If you Google there are a few group test of meters that show that some are more accurate than others. But these will generally have more expensive test strips.
As already said, don't get hung up on tenths & if you get an unexpected reading, try retesting.
As already said, don't get hung up on tenths & if you get an unexpected reading, try retesting.
Drummer
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
I do tend to treat myself as an engineering project, even though I was always a science type - so I used the glucose tester to get a difference, rather than an absolute value, and then looked for trends.
If I got an anomalous reading I tended to simply disregard it. I was using a tee 2+ device from Spirit Healthcare, never did a first thing reading as I did not know how to affect it.
I adjusted my carb intake down to where I was seeing under 8mmol/l at the 2 hours after mark, kept to the same meals and saw the numbers continue to reduce, which I took to mean that my metabolism was adjusting back into normality - that seems to have been the case. I continue to eat the same meals, but cut back slightly to - hopefully - reduce my Hba1c into the 30s. Did not happen - case proven for the engineer option I think.
If I got an anomalous reading I tended to simply disregard it. I was using a tee 2+ device from Spirit Healthcare, never did a first thing reading as I did not know how to affect it.
I adjusted my carb intake down to where I was seeing under 8mmol/l at the 2 hours after mark, kept to the same meals and saw the numbers continue to reduce, which I took to mean that my metabolism was adjusting back into normality - that seems to have been the case. I continue to eat the same meals, but cut back slightly to - hopefully - reduce my Hba1c into the 30s. Did not happen - case proven for the engineer option I think.
Leadinglights
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
I bit like blood pressure monitors, we have one which is 'reliable' but I am having to monitor as the Dr has changed my medication and the readings are all over the place. 1st of 4 usually higher than the rest but up and down like a yoyo, but a general trend going down.
Thanks for your reply, I'm not sure what the "tenths" mean?
Leadinglights
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
The numbers after the decimal point.
Oh OK ! Thanks so much!
There's a summary here of the current (2013) ISO standard. Your 6.1 meter reading could in reality be anything between 5.2 & 7.0 & still be compliant. Additionally, meters only have to meet this spec 95% of the time, so 1 in 20 readings could be wildly out yet still compliant. Hence why you should retest if you get an unexpected reading.
Docb
Moderator
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
A point I have made in a couple of other threads on this subject is not to forget that there are two sources of error, instrument error and sampling error.
The instrument error is the error you get when the instrument is used with a test solution where you know for certain what the answer should be. If you did lots of tests under these circumstances you would expect to get an average of the test solution value with some scatter around that average. In terms off absolute accuracy, the best meter would be the one whose average came closest to the tests solution value combined with a low spread.
The sampling error comes from assuming that the blood is homogenous and it does not matter where you take the sample from in the body, it value will always be the same. My guess is that it will not but I have no idea by how much it will vary.
I feel an experiment coming on to resolve this. All I need is a calibrated test solution and I can nail this once and for all, at least for me and my meter.
On the other side, as others have said, you can ignore the number after the decimal point. No matter where the errors are coming from, the meters cannot measure to that accuracy. Round to the nearest whole number and you reasonably rely on your blood glucose being somewhere between one above it and one below it. So, a 5.2 would round to 5 and then you could reasonably expect your blood glucose to be somewhere between 4 and 6.
@Sulfate - You ask whether a waking 6.1 seems high. Does not to me. A 6.1 reading means to me that your blood glucose was somewhere between 5 and 7 and to me that is perfectly reasonable and should set you off on your day as a happy bunny.
The instrument error is the error you get when the instrument is used with a test solution where you know for certain what the answer should be. If you did lots of tests under these circumstances you would expect to get an average of the test solution value with some scatter around that average. In terms off absolute accuracy, the best meter would be the one whose average came closest to the tests solution value combined with a low spread.
The sampling error comes from assuming that the blood is homogenous and it does not matter where you take the sample from in the body, it value will always be the same. My guess is that it will not but I have no idea by how much it will vary.
I feel an experiment coming on to resolve this. All I need is a calibrated test solution and I can nail this once and for all, at least for me and my meter.
On the other side, as others have said, you can ignore the number after the decimal point. No matter where the errors are coming from, the meters cannot measure to that accuracy. Round to the nearest whole number and you reasonably rely on your blood glucose being somewhere between one above it and one below it. So, a 5.2 would round to 5 and then you could reasonably expect your blood glucose to be somewhere between 4 and 6.
@Sulfate - You ask whether a waking 6.1 seems high. Does not to me. A 6.1 reading means to me that your blood glucose was somewhere between 5 and 7 and to me that is perfectly reasonable and should set you off on your day as a happy bunny.
Thanks all for your really helpful answers. One more! Does hot weather affect blood sugar?🙂
Leadinglights
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
I don't know if it does if you are in the 'at risk' category but people have mentioned having to adjust insulin doses when it is hot weather.
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