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Erratic Meter Results

T

tommyj

Member
Messages
13
Hi all - after having a stressful enough day with my optician telling me after an ophthalmoscopy that she found blots at the back of my eye and referred me for urgent look at hospital, doing my tests this evening have left me utterly confused:

My meter is the Bayer Contour USB (less than a month old as my last one met a watery end), I tested before driving home from work at around 5:25pm and was @ 6.2, happy enough with this. When I went to do my pre-dinner test an hour later I was at 9.0, despite only having a latté on the way home (would warm milk normally do this?), however the fun only started when I thought to check again before transfixing myself. The results were as follows:

17:26 - 6.2 (went for a drive and had a latté)
18:43 - 9.0 (thought high so I'll check again)
18:45 - 7.9 (confused now)
18:47 - 9.2 (even more confused but I'll persevere)
18:48 - 9.3 (thought the 7.9 must have been a blip)
18:51 - 7.0 (control test - perfectly normal)
18:52 - 10.4 (***?)
18:53 - 8.4 (*** ***?)
18:54 - 9.7 (gave up so stabbed myself and went and had dinner)

If anyone can give an explanation for this 'pattern' (or lack of) I would be most grateful. A couple of questions:

(1) What is the margin of error in these machines, I would have assumed 0.1 - 0.3 but obviously not
(2) Can the BG levels really jump about like that in such short timeframes?
(3) The control test was spot bang in the middle of the normal range - could my meter be faulty?
(4) Would my latté really have put my BG up by 3?

I have probably bored you by now so any thoughts welcome.

/TJ
 
Hi Tommy J, dont know how much milk was in your latte but I do know that I used to use milk to raise my bg levels when I was on insulin and close to a hypo, not as fast as Lucozade or glucotabs but definitely raised my bg by at least 3 mmol/L and that was a medium glass of milk.

Stick to ordinary coffee with a dash of milk if you cant take it black as it sounds like you dont handle milk well, sorry but thats what I think :)
 
it does sound a bit erratic. Had you washed your hands? If you had been handling something a little residue might have skewed the results for some fingers and not others.

I'm with Sid on the latte, definitely a good source of carbohydrate. I use them to nudge my sugars up if they are on a slow descend.
 
Your test strips and/or control solution will have details of acceptable results for the control solution, e.g. 2.2-3.9 for low Freestyle Classic; I do not know the values for Contour.

Generally meters are accurate to +-20%. Your results are consistent with a true value of about 9.

As for the Latte, that would depend on the size (e.g. Starbucks "bucket" size contains 25g sugar from milk); 10g carbohydrates tend to raise BG by 2-3 mmol/l
 
It was a latté of a smallish size! Although even the milk wouldnt explain a 3 point range in 11 minutes on the meter readings. I meant to add as well I always wash my hands between readings (such a good child).
 
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