Abbott Freestyle accuracy

[donnellysdogs]

Had really, really good sensor readings against aviva expert. Until this sensor.

Worn constantly since July.

This sensor though I did place a little higher up in my arm to give rest of my arm a rest. (Can only place on one arm).
I think the lower levels its telling me on this sensor is due to the sensor being slightly higher.

 

[CherryAA]

well I replaced the last one after three days which Abbott are replacing. i had a spare so I put that on. That is giving even worse readings than the replaced one.

I have had three " terrible days" average blood sugars at least 1 mmol hgher than before and plenty of readings using the libre in the 10's However the blood sticks on the same machine have been at least 1 mmol lower and 2.5 mmol lower when the machine was recording the peaks. I am beginning to think that for me it is worse than useless. Maybe my arms ( which are the fattest parts of me ) are jut not suitable sites for it.

I have actually not eaten any deliberate carbs other then in above ground veg and bit of cheese sauce so I doubt I'm really having anything like as bad a time as it appears at present I think I will be going back to my code free ! its an expensive piece of kit to spend your time thinking its giving readings not even in the ball park. Especially when its own blood monitor strips are so expensive. I think I may consign it to the dustbin. Now I kno how low carb works. I may try the new year not using sticks at all but instead doing periodic home hba1c - that seem to have given more accurate results that the sticks or the senor.

 

[CherryAA]

I'm updating my thoughts on this . I think I was wrong in the above post. Whilst its true that I have had to replace one - which Abbott did without query, I now think that the other sensors were much better than I had thought.

The very first sensor I put on seemed to be giving me readings that were far too good. The next two were giving me readings that were seemed far too bad. Having now tried a fourth sensor which has given me readings at both ends of this range as we went through xmas, I have realised that I was probably in deep ketosis during the first sensor and as such the great readings were probably fine and which were then confirmed by a home Hba1C test at 5.9. At the time I thought that was probably too good - which seemed to be confirmed a couple of weeks later by an official reading of 6.2 . I now think the home test was accurate and I really did suffer a deterioration in the intervening two weeks. I think that 5.9 reading gave me a false sense of security an my diet got a little bit more lax as a result.

My body is obviously very sensitive to the combination of carbs and protein. Over xmas I saw my daily average glusoce increase dramatically from an average of 6.5% to 8.1% in only four days - as such it has become clear that my own Hba1C is quite volatile and the 5.9% to 6.2% in the space of a couple of weeks perfectly possible.

The next two sensors seemed to be giving me much higher readings without seeming compensating change in diet, however the difference was that I had eaten enough at an early stage in that period to switch me out of ketosis and it was that which seems to have resulted in the increase. My fourth sensor covered a period where I was definitely out of ketosis ( over xmas giving rise to high readings) and then got back into it giving a daily reducing readings which are close to those initial "optimistic" readings.

If anyone was put off by my comments in terms of getting a Libre, then I apologise. It so happened that the first time I stuck it on coincided with a period of deep ketosis which had only just begun and which the blood prick tests cannot really pick up.

I now think its an excellent tool and that I needed to go through a few cycles to understand how it reacts to me , and that whilst it might show different readings from the finger prick tests, on balance the actual trace it gives me is a pretty good reflection.

I wanted to post this so people would not be put off by my initial disappointment. I am clearly far too impatient !