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Meter Accuracy

M

MisterMoo

Member
Messages
18
Type of diabetes
Type 2
I know I need to get some control solution - just wondering what people regard as the best/most accurate meter.

On intial diagnosis I bought myself a Freestyle freedom lite meter, 1 month later due to visit the nurse. took my reading before I left home - 6.9. The Nurse offered me a free meter (didn't tell her I had one already), an Optium Exceed, she showed me how to use it and the reading was 5.8, this was a surprise so as soon as I got home checked with the freestyle lite again and the reading was 6.9.

Contacted Abbott (very helpful) for some contral solution, but was informed the meters used different technologies, unlikely to get the same readings but both meters within acceptable range, instead they sent me another Optium Exceed as a spare since I now had a presecription for test strips for the Exceed.

Meanwhile I received another free meter from Bayer - an Ascencia Contour - so I started using this since I had run out of strips for the Freestyle meter. Started to get disheartened becuase my BG didn't seem to be improving - so I did a comparison test this morning - 2 hours after breakfast:

Ascencia Contour 7.9 and 8.2
1st Optium Exceed 4.2
2nd Optium Exceed 4.4
No strips left for the Freestyle lite but its readings were previously similar to the Ascencia Contour.

As you can see there is a big difference in readings - anybody had a similar experience?

The Exceed uses individually wrapped coded strips - dose this make it more accurate?

Regards

Alan
 
Hi Mistermoo

I have the Optimum Exceed and never thought there was any differences with other units until your post.

There is a very helpful report on one of these forums that said some of the readings are not too accurate and if you get one that seems totally out of wack to how you feel do it again just to see if the reading was wrong.

Others on here are much more knowledgeable than me but I do wonder if you have maybe too much choice with so many meters? (just think how easy it was with viewing telly before Sky/Freeview, etc!?!) :P
 
Suzil
How does you meter match up to your HBA1C figures?
I only want to use one meter but obviously I want a fairly accurate one.
I only bought the Freestyle light (£7) the rest have been freebies - thought I might as well use up the supplied test strips - what I wasn't expecting was the disparity in the readings.
Regards
Alan
 
My BS are all over the place at the moment. In the past week I have had everything between 7.4 and 12.3. I have been very interested to read about this low carb approach and have been trying to give it a go but not always successful. Apparently the more carbs you eat the more you want - oh how true that is. I never really changed my diet when I was first diagnosed because I never had added sugar to anything, mostly ate salads and have always loved swimming and still go every other day (doing 30 lengths of a normal pool in 30 mins). The only thing I have done is go veggie (although still eat fish) about 5 months ago.
 
Hi Alan,
I had a similar problem about a year ago. I had an Accu-check meter but it seemed to be forever needing recalibrating with control fluid. I saw an ad for the (then) new Ascencia Contour which never needs to be recalibrated, so I bought one. I started using the two in tandem but found the readings were very different. The Contour reading was always higher, sometimes nearly double the Accu-check. I took both to my diabetes nurse, who tested each with a control solution that has a known glucose value, and found that the Ascencia was spot on. Bit of a disappointment because that meant my BS was not as well controlled as I thought it was, but at least I knew which one gave the more accurate readings.

This isn't a plug for Ascencia meters, because I believe that all the manufacturers state that their meters can be out by a factor of +/- 20%.
 
Hello MisterMoo,

At below 10 mmol, my Freestyle Mini consistently reads 1-2 mmol higher than my Accu-check meter.
Above 10, the variation can be upto 5 mmol difference. :shock:

Regards,
timo.
 
Thanks for the replys.
I have been trawling the web but haven't found anything useful that I could understand. Just keep coming across the 20% figure you mentioned Dennis.
Just tested again - 8.1 for both the Ascencia Contour and the Optium Xceed!
Unfortunately not doing as well as I thought. The Contour is looking more consistent. I will let you know how I get on when I test with some control solution.
Regards
Alan
 
Sorry - I think it was an error on my part.
I just tried the 2nd Xceed - reading of 4.0. Put the code strip back in the meter and turned the meter off with the button once the code had been displayed as per the instructions - previously I had just pulled the code strip out again to turn the meter off as I would do with the test strips.
Retested - reading of 7.0.
Tested with the Contour - reading of 6.9.

Happier now that I appear to be getting fairly accurate readings - just wish they were lower.
 
here is a very good diabetes question site that I finally found after months of searching. Ignore all the advertizing that takes up over half the computer screne.

http://stason.org/TULARC/health/diabetes/14-How-accurate-is-my-blood-glucose-meter.html

Plus if you click on the words ..... diabetes FAQ .... you will get to home page with answers to many questions.
 
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