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Inaccuracies of meters

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Alloneword

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Type 2
I'm having to keep a close eye on my levels at the minute given i'm new to "Byetta" so tested my blood on my usual meter read 17.9 then on my GF and that read 14.2 so i went back tomy meter again and gave result of 16.6 less then a minute after giving me a result of 17.9.

I know there not scientific equipment but i would expect them to be a bit more accurite.

If you have a meter test it yourself and post back i'd be intrested to know if this is the same across the board or is my meter duff?


All1
 
Hi All1.

Meters are required to be within about 10% I think, plus it would depend on where you took the sample from (even different places on the same finger could be out), temperature, humidity, phase of the moon, town of birth, etc.

Like most things diabetes related, there are many, many variables to make it interesting! :D

Rob
 
All meters are governed by a tollerance of accurcy, can't remember of hand if this is 10% or 20%..

Then you've got all the other veriables, such a whether your GF and your meter read whole blood or plasma, temperature, whether the blood drop was exposed to air for a nano second or more than the last one etc.. Whether you squeezed out some body fluid with the blood, many many variables invovled..

But compared to the old BM sticks that you timed before comparing the stick pad to a colour chart to get a whether you blood was hypo, 4.6mmol/l, 7mmol/l, 11mmol/l or out of range.. Meters are a lot more accurate

But if you'll worried just check the readings using the test solution provided, if you haven't got any ring the manufacturers of the meter and they will send you some
 
As far as I'm aware blood glucose meters can be out by -/+ 10% so your readings are not surprising, try and stick to one meter and one reading only unless you are sure that this doesn't fit in with how you feel. Blood glucose meters have never been precision instruments and only act as a guide, this is why when I am in the low 4's I will treat it as a possible hypo and eat some carbs as the possibility is I could in hypo territory which is below 4.
 
Having used some mains powered meters used in hospitals & labs, I'm happy to trade a bit of accuracy for the convenience of small size & battery power and relative tolerance to temperature extremes & humidity (although nowhere near the extremes my bodt can cope with) of a home blood glucose meter.

As long as you accept there's a tolerance of 10% or so (at optimum conditions), then they're OK.
 
Well all i'm saying is given i took blood from same pin prick within about 60 seconds my own meter gave results of 17.9 and 16.6 and that seems like a big gap IMO.


All1
 
Alloneword said:
Well all i'm saying is given i took blood from same pin prick within about 60 seconds my own meter gave results of 17.9 and 16.6 and that seems like a big gap IMO.
All1
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It's within 10% - but I would agree that to me it would look fairly big.

I've done two reading with my FreeStyle Lite on same hand, different pin pricks and got exactly the same reading. Although that was down low (4.8, I didn't quite believe it the first time so I repeated) and the meters are supposed to be more accurate for lower values.

I'm assuming that you didn't have any contaminates on your skin. (teaching to suck eggs I know). I've done that a few times where I've tested without cleaning my hands from using a baby-wipe on little boy (something in it makes you look high).
 
Alloneword said:
Well all i'm saying is given i took blood from same pin prick within about 60 seconds my own meter gave results of 17.9 and 16.6 and that seems like a big gap IMO.


All1
Click to expand...

You could have had some tissue fluid mixed in with the blood, this is why you are told not to squeeze your fingers to get a blood drop, as you squeeze you push some of the tissue fluid out with the blood..
 
Yup, you need a mega-drop of blood and point the test strips end to end so the one drop divides itself, bet there's still a 10% difference.

I can live with 10% meself, however I had a new 'smart' meter that's sposed to do everything* recently and the difference was 25% and more, except the times it wasn't.

My DSN and I had a mass finger pricking sesh last Thursday (both of us LOL) and she is speaking to the company cos it's somewhat less than ideal a) with a pump and b) if you are just about to drive down the motorway ........

* still doesn't do the ironing or the drying up though, why the heck can't they invent one that does after all this time?
 
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