Confused

Your level of 51 will be a hba1c blood test that has been sent away and tested in a lab. it measures how much glucose has stuck to your blood cells. Blood cells live for around 12 weeks so the hba1c is looked upon as a sort of average over the last 12 weeks.
The higher your sugar levels have been the more glucose will be stuck to your blood and the higher the HbA1c number will be.

People reporting levels of 10 or 5.5 or 6.8 will be sharing the results of finger prick tests they have done themselves with a glucose meter. The test done with a glucose monitor at home measures your actual glucose level. This level changes throughout the day depending on how many carbs you eat and how active you are

When deciding on which meter to buy bear in mind the cost of the strips, they can be expensive and you will get through quite a few. I'll tag @Rachox I think she has some useful info on the meters

Just to add to the confusion

the figures like 10 might be a fingerprick test in mmol/L ie a person testing their blood in that moment as described by @catinahat

it might also be the hba1c (3 month test described above) because the USA, and a few other countries and some old fashioned U.K. labs and drs use a % scale to describe hba1c rather than the usual U.K. mmol/mol. Which is what @Grant_Vicat has linked you to

It’s all in the units. Context will often give a clue which test is being described (a home test will be fingerprick, a drs one likely ab hba1c)

To round up the confusion the USA also use a different scale for fingerpricks mg/dL which is usually around 80-200

Thanks for the tag @catinahat
Here’s some info on UK meters, and to be clear I have no commercial connections with any of the companies mentioned.

HOME HEALTH have the Gluco Navii, which is a fairly new model and seems to be getting good reviews if you use this link and select the meter plus 5 packs of strips, and then add the code dcuk (all lower case) at check out you may get money off, I’m not sure if this code is still valid.


https://homehealth-uk.com/all-produ...ose-meter-test-strips-choose-mmol-l-or-mg-dl/


Links to the strips for future orders:


https://homehealth-uk.com/all-products/glucose-navii-blood-glucose-test-strips-50-strip-pack/


There are also discount codes for when you come to buy more strips - "navii5" and "navii10" will give you 20% off purchases of 5 packs of strips and 25% off 10 packs of strips respectively. Again I’m not sure if these codes are still valid.


Then they sell the older SD Code Free, details to be found here!


https://homehealth-uk.com/all-products/codefree-blood-glucose-monitoring-system-mmoll-or-mgdl/


Discount codes for the Code Free strips, again I haven’t used them in a while.


5 packs 264086

10 packs 975833



SPIRIT HEALTHCARE have a meter called the Tee2 + which is quite popular however I haven’t been able to find it on their website lately.


(Old link which doesn’t work for me now but maybe works for you, if it doesn’t try the phone number below

https://shop.spirit-health.co.uk/co...e2-blood-glucose-meter?variant=19264017268793 ) or Google it and you’ll find it’s available from other outlets.


The strips are to be found here:


https://shop.spirit-health.co.uk/co...py-of-tee2-test-strips?variant=19264017367097


Some members have got a free Tee2+ by phoning up to order, with a large order of strips they often throw the meter in for free:


Phone number 0800 8815423


If there is a choice of units of measurement then ‘mmol/L’ are the standard units in the UK, ‘mg/dl’ in the US, other countries may vary.



Don’t forget to check the box if you have pre diabetes or diabetes so you can buy VAT free. (for all meters and strips)