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Is a meter allowed to give this much variation?

T

the_anticarb

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My meter (a bayer contour) is consistently inconsistent, sometimes I will check twice at the same time to test it, and it can easily be two points out, eg 8.4 and then 6.4 which is around 25% difference.

Are they allowed to be this much out? And if so which is the most accurate meter on the market as I need to get my control very tight now due to pregnancy, I would do a correction dose on 8.4 not 6.4 so it's important I have a meter which can tell it to me straight.

Its hard enough being diabetic without faulty tools!
 
Have you tested it with control solution?
 
The Mylife Pura claims to be the most accurate. A bit fiddley to use though. Before that I had a Contour. Once I had a reading of 2.4, didn't feel the slightest bit hypo tested again and it said in the 5s.
 
Basically they shouldnt be 25% out...did you wash your hands? Even inbed after the last thing I do is was my hands before going to bed.. I was told that any blood tests even inbed are invalid if hands arent washed..
I used to just roll over and test... Not now I traipse down the hall to wash hands first....
 
It is mostly to do with the quality of the sample of blood. Finger prick samples are a mix of undetermined proportions of blood from arterioles, venules, capillaries, plus interstitial and intracellular fluids. The capillary blood overstates the reading which would be obtained by venous blood anyway and blood plasma, whether obtained by capillary or venous samples overstate results obtained by analysis of haemaglobin. It's not as evenly mixed as one might imagine. That is why the ranges are so broad.
 
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