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Meter reading discrepancies

david1968

Well-Known Member
Messages
409
Location
Bronte Land
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I've two meters - the one I was given when I was first diagnosed three and a half years ago (a Freestyle Optium) and a Freestyle Optium Neo.

Last night I decided to carry out a little experiment and took readings with both meters - first with high and low control solutions and then with the same drop of blood ... and the Neo in all three cases gave a reading a whole point or more lower then the Optium.

Mentioned it to my doctor when I saw her today and she said that the readings that I've been getting with the Optium are consistent with my latest HbA1C reading and that I should continue to use that rather than using the Neo.

Has anybody else come across this sort of thing? And which meter should I be trusting?

Thanks,

David
 

Only 1 point, wow that is unusual

The 2 meters I have are 2mmol apart. I'm afraid our meters are not as accurate as we would like them to be (+/- 15%)

And you could easily get different results if you repeated the test.
 
Yes, no meters are 100% accurate. They are allowed to be plus or minus 15% wrong. Even with the same drop of blood you will be very lucky to get a similar reading, and that also applies to consecutive readings with the same meter. The general advice is to keep one hidden away to be used only in emergencies as a spare, and stick to one. Unless you are on insulin they don't have to be accurate to any extent. You are only looking for trends, and things will even out after several tests. I understand how annoying it can be - I get very cross about it sometimes, but it's all we have I'm afraid.
 
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