Strange blood reading

[sigrumpy1]

Hi all I took my blood readings yesterday around 16:00 using a finger on my left hand and the reading was 7 out of curiosity i took it on my right hand and the reading was 5.8, anyone got any ideas why apart form residue on my hands.?
Thank you Simon

 

[AdamJames]

My old meter is accurate to +/- 20%. New meters need to be accurate to +/- 15% under UK rules I think, not sure where you are in the world.

7 * 0.85 = 5.95

7 * 0.80 = 5.6

The results are within 20% of each other.

 

[AdamJames]

The lack of accuracy is a pain for certain applications. Fine if you just want to see a trend over time, e.g. how your morning readings vary over a month. But for e.g. finding foods that you can tolerate, you either need to take a few readings and average, before eating, then a few and average afterwards. Or keep testing the same foods a few times to get a feel.

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

I was reading on another forum that they were getting different readings on different fingers and also different sides of the same finger. Most replies suggested definitely an inconsistency in the machine.

 

[JohnEGreen]

My readings are always different on one side than the other left hand side always higher some time by a small amount other times more marked. This also applies to blood pressure as well. It's just we are all to a degree asymmetrical and there fore to be expected.

 

[archersuz]

I got an unexpected high if 7.5 yesterday. So I retested the same finger twice and got 5.8 and 6. I then tested another finger same hand and got 5.8. A finger on the other hand gave 6.5. At that point I decided to take an average!

 

[rmz80]

Ive sometimes tested BG strips for accuracy (variability) by getting a pool of blood on one finger. Do one reading then swap a new strip in the meter quick. This will eliminate guessing if different fingers have different readings (as its usually the strips)