Help with inconsistent bg monitor readings

[Mst27]

Hi my daughter has type 1 and has the libre 2+. Today her libre was reading 3.8 but her bg monitor said 5.2 she felt something was wrong so tested again from the same blood draw immediately and it read 4.2. She has a spare bg monitor of a different brand and hours later after returning from uni she had a reading of 3.8 on the Libre the monitor used earlier read 4.2 and the spare monitor read 5.8. She was diagnosed nearly a year ago and has been struggling with her emotions towards her diabetes recently this is just another thing that has thrown her and made her upset. Does anyone have any ideas as to why this might be happening. Any help would be appreciated

 

[Andy HB]

Hi my daughter has type 1 and has the libre 2+. Today her libre was reading 3.8 but her bg monitor said 5.2 she felt something was wrong so tested again from the same blood draw immediately and it read 4.2. She has a spare bg monitor of a different brand and hours later after returning from uni she had a reading of 3.8 on the Libre the monitor used earlier read 4.2 and the spare monitor read 5.8. She was diagnosed nearly a year ago and has been struggling with her emotions towards her diabetes recently this is just another thing that has thrown her and made her upset. Does anyone have any ideas as to why this might be happening. Any help would be appreciated

When taking readings all monitors have an error range. They will also differ from monitor to monitor. I am not 100% sure what the error range is, but it is quite large (10% or more perhaps).

So given that, so long as you are relatively happy with a particular monitor it is best to stick with just one.

Taking multiple readings can be a good approach and then taking the average will probably give you a more accurate answer. Being an ex physicist, this was something I did regularly during experiments. There is also a whole mathematical approach to calculating the value and its final error range (which reduces the more readings taken).

The readings taken by your daughter were, actually all pretty well grouped. If you were getting readings ranging from 3 to 10 that would have been much more concerning.

I hope that helped.

Best wishes,

Andrew

 

[Inka]

It’s normal @Mst27 The blood glucose meters have a margin of error (I think it’s 15%). She should always take a blood glucose meter over a Libre reading. She did absolutely the right thing testing again as she felt funny. You can test 10 times in a row on a blood glucose meter and get slightly different readings.

It takes a couple of years to really begin to ‘get used to’ Type 1. Tell her she’s doing ok and that she’s not alone x

 

[Mst27]

Thank you so much for your replies. I will pass this on to her. She is struggling with all of it at the moment. She delayed treating a hypo a couple of days ago because she was embarrassed her alarm had sounded during a lecture. She felt awful and I’m hoping has learned not to let that happen again.

 

[Thebearcametoo]

Thank you so much for your replies. I will pass this on to her. She is struggling with all of it at the moment. She delayed treating a hypo a couple of days ago because she was embarrassed her alarm had sounded during a lecture. She felt awful and I’m hoping has learned not to let that happen again.

Hypos should be treated immediately so she needs to have sweets, glucose, or something like fruit juice with her at all times. Treatment for highs can be delayed for a little while but lows are urgent. It’s not always easy when blood glucose is either high or low to be rational though so it’s not uncommon for someone to be concerned about an outside factor and not deal with the thing that needs dealing with. If she can be open about her diagnosis and have friends support her that’s really useful.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Hi my daughter has type 1 and has the libre 2+. Today her libre was reading 3.8 but her bg monitor said 5.2 she felt something was wrong so tested again from the same blood draw immediately and it read 4.2. She has a spare bg monitor of a different brand and hours later after returning from uni she had a reading of 3.8 on the Libre the monitor used earlier read 4.2 and the spare monitor read 5.8. She was diagnosed nearly a year ago and has been struggling with her emotions towards her diabetes recently this is just another thing that has thrown her and made her upset. Does anyone have any ideas as to why this might be happening. Any help would be appreciated

As others said those are all kind of close in value. It's well known that while monitor (and Libre) give results in tenths of a mmol/l they're nowhere near that accurate.

We're trying to control this constantly changing thing with measuring equipment that we know isn't all that accurate so it's important not to believe we can do it all that precisely. And even if it was that accurate, blood glucose can change quickly enough that knowing that a drop of blood had precisely 5.3mmol/l 5 minutes ago wouldn't mean all that much now anyway.

That's one thing I really value about the idea of Time in Range: it allows that trying to hit (say) 5.8 (or whatever) before the next meal makes much less sense than trying to stay within 4-10 for as much of the time as possible (but straying outside that is expected).

 

[Woodywoodpecker]

Thank you so much for your replies. I will pass this on to her. She is struggling with all of it at the moment. She delayed treating a hypo a couple of days ago because she was embarrassed her alarm had sounded during a lecture. She felt awful and I’m hoping has learned not to let that happen again.

Hi I was diagnosed last April, and still struggle at times with it all, tell her she’s not alone. Im hoping one day will be more comfortable with it all, she certainly has nothing to be embarrassed about

 

[Bruce Stephens]

I was diagnosed last April, and still struggle at times with it all, tell her she’s not alone.

We all struggle at times!

 

[Inka]

Thank you so much for your replies. I will pass this on to her. She is struggling with all of it at the moment. She delayed treating a hypo a couple of days ago because she was embarrassed her alarm had sounded during a lecture. She felt awful and I’m hoping has learned not to let that happen again.

She shouldn’t be embarrassed. Quite apart from the fact her alarm is medical, I bet people’s phone have beeped in lectures too. If she’s worried about having to fumble around in a lecture, perhaps she could pre-empt that by having hypo treatments on her desk or easily accessible in her pocket?

 

[helli]

If only we weren't embarrassed by the things that we shouldn't be embarrassed about. I know it isn't that easy and I am not a teenager/young woman.
Maybe there is another way.
- keep hypo treatment close to hand. This doesn't have to be on display for all to see and label us "diabetic"! It could be in her coat pocket or she could choose something that isn't "medicine" like jelly babies.
- reduce the chance of hypos. Sadly we cannot avoid them completely but it is always useful to look back and understand why the last one happened and work out what we would do differently next time.
- keep a closer eye on BG and proactively respond when she sees her BG falling. If she had a smartwatch, she could display her BG on that and look at it easier than her phone.
- have a more subtle alarm. This one is tough because it is important that she hears the alarm. But I think it is possible to get a smartwatch to vibrate so only she notices. I don't use the Libre but maybe there is a way to have two alarms through a third party app - a vibrating one at, say 5.0 and a piercing one at 3.9?
- get a friend onboard to help. This wouldn't stop the hypo or make it less obvious but if, for example, a friend was following her BG they could respond to a low together making it less about her.
- recognise that it is embarrassing for her but it is important. Try to understand what it is that makes it embarrassing - does she not like the attention? Does she not like putting her diabetes "out there"? Does she feel as if it is highlighting her mistakes? Is she an introvert who would have the same reaction to her phone pinging because Mum sent another message? Was it instilled into her that pinging/alarming/ringing phones in public is bad manners? Did her lecturer draw attention to it? ...

Overall, we have to get over the embarrassment and the alarm that feels as if it is shouting "I got my insulin wrong AGAIN!" but we can make tweaks like those above to make it easier.

 

[mashedupmatt]

As has already been said, there can be some difference in all readings, regardless of where they come from (Finger prick or CGM) - particularly at higher and lower levels - a couple of things regarding alarms - if she has an android phone you can download Juggluco from the Play Store and use that for alarms instead of the Libre - it receives the same readings as the Libre so is as accurate - you can set the alarms on that to just vibrate (Which I use in certain situations) and as @helli has said, there are numerous Smart Watch options too - I'm just trying out a new one myself:



Using the trend arrow I find very useful as you can head off hypos quickly and discretely with a few sweets

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

I think being embarrassed in that situation it’s pretty normal @Mst27 . Like your phone going off in the theatre or cinema? Another thing is that when your glucose levels are low and dropping your brain literally goes on the fritz, you can convince yourself that all sorts of unwise choices are logical, or get trapped into feeling that you must finish this, that, or the other thing before you get the treatment you know you need.

As others have said having something in your pocket is really important - then you can just quietly treat and get on with whatever you were doing. Gluco tabs in a little pot perhaps. Or my choice is the little ‘fun size’ Squashies, Haribo, or Skittles if I’m feeling extravagant.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

As for the reading variation your daughter has seen, this handy table shows the ranges around any one BG level that are permitted under the MG meter ISO accuracy guidelines:

BG meter accuracy
It can be quite disconcerting for members new to self monitoring of blood glucose to get different results from BG readings taken close together, even when carefully following manufacturers guidance (washing hands etc). All meters for sale in the UK should comply with the following ISO standards 95% of the time, which allows a degree of variation (and 5% of results can read anything at all). If in any doubt, or if a reading doesn’t match how you are feeling, you should check again with a fresh strip.