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Different results from 2 meters

Brunneria said:
I agree with everything said above, but do want to ask one thing - do your daily meter readings match your HbA1c readings? It will never be an exact match, but they should be in the rough ballpark (this will only work if you take multiple meter readings every day. If you test less frequently, then the comparison will be useless).

This table shows how to translate the different units.
hba1c-chart.jpg


I am not on insulin, so I would always prefer a meter that reads higher rather than lower - because it shows a 'worse case' scenario and motivates me towards better control. On the other hand, if I were using the meter for calculating my insulin doses, I would have different priorities.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry I'm still a bit new to all this. For quite a few years I never tested my blood sugar as I was having blood tests every month or so and got out of the habit. I've got a few other health problems and to be honest until the other month when I was told I would need to start taking insulin my diabetes was a very low priority which I now know was a huge mistake.
So without a blood test at the hospital how else can I find out my hba1c result, though the nurse at my annual review said it was much better than normal without giving me a figure. What is the ideal range for hba1c?
 
It is possible to buy home tests which can give you your HbA1c in a matter of minutes. Of course you have to buy them.
Have a google for the brand name A1CNow or A1c NOW and you will find them. There is quite a lot of debate on whether they are accurate enough, since they aren't NHS lab tests. I figure they are probably accurate enough to give a ballpark figure.

Otherwise you are stuck with the frequency of HbA1c tests that you can persuade your nurse to give you. :)

If you want to know the actual accurate results of ALL your medical tests, you need to ask. Your nurse will be reading the numbers off the screen, and then dumbing it down for you, the patient, into plain English. Don't know about you ;) but I ain't dumb, so I want the actual numbers please. Don't let them fob you off with platitudes. It is YOUR health. You live with it every day, and the numbers are IMPORTANT.

(had a hilarious situation with my doc recently, where he took my blood pressure. When he had finished, he turned to his computer and started tapping the keyboard. So I asked what the result was. He ignored me. So I asked again. He ignored me. So I asked again (we could have gone on all day, and I think he realised that..). So he told me. The appointment went downhill from that point! haha!)

You can get the results of any of your tests by asking the nurse or doc at the time you see them, or ringing the receptionist and asking. Sometimes the receptionist will refuse to give the numbers out, but just push a bit, and they may offer to get the nurse or doc to call you. Keep asking til you get somewhere. You can also ask for a printout, from nurse or receptionist. Alternatively, you can ask for online access to your test results (surgeries are required to offer this service in the UK, since April 2016). The receptionist can tell you what the set up process is.

Don't worry about understanding the numbers they tell you. You can look them up online, or ask here, and we can point you in the direction of how to understand them. That chart I posted higher up the thread will give you a good indication. Green is good. Amber less so. Red needs action NOW.
 
@Alastair.z70 "knowledge is power" and knowledge of all your diabetes blood checks (HbA1c, cholesterol and lipids, liver and kidney functions, full blood count, and others) is essential if you are to learn how your body is coping with this disease and other issues. Without this information you are working blind. You need to know where you are now, and what needs improving. In the future you can look back and compare to see if you are improving or not and be in a position to do something about it. Be in charge of your own health and never be fobbed off with comments such as "that's fine", "that's normal" "that isn't too good". If a particular test comes back as within the normal range you won't be told - but what if that result is only just normal, teetering on the edge of abnormal? You need to know.
 
I do have certain online access and have found the area for test results so I have requested access to that as well. We shall see what the gp's say next week. Thanks for all the responses everyone it has made interesting reading and opened my eyes to what I should be looking out for.
Hope you all have a healthy Christmas and a great 2017
 
Late reply, but I've had a similar problem. I had a free style optimum for several years but it was changed to a one touch vario. When I was changing over I did several weeks of using both meters with the same drop of blood and there is a significant difference. In the end I did a comparison and the FSO reading is approximately 0.8*OTV+0.8.

It's annoying because I'd just got the readings down to 6.0 in the morning, and they jumped up quite a bit which makes all my graphs have a kink in them
 
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