Meter readings versus blood test/lab reading?

[Lucozade]

Hi

Anyone have any info on how closely/accurately the glucose meters actually reflect the real values in terms of blood glucose, compared to lab results?

 

[cocacola]

I had an Hb1Ac test done a couple of weeks ago. I had been testing for 4 weeks before the test. I had also started on a new meds and eating less carbs.
My meter told me my previous 4 weeks averaged 6.4, my Hb1Ac came back as 6.5 :mrgreen:

 

[Lucozade]

I had an Hb1Ac test done a couple of weeks ago. I had been testing for 4 weeks before the test. I had also started on a new meds and eating less carbs.
My meter told me my previous 4 weeks averaged 6.4, my Hb1Ac came back as 6.5 :mrgreen:

Good work! Which meter is that?

 

[phoenix]

My meter told me my previous 4 weeks averaged 6.4, my Hb1Ac came back as 6.5

That's a good result so soon on but meter averages and HbA1c aren't the same thing and reflect glucose levels in the previous 3 months (though have some bias towards recent weeks)
The equivalent of 6.5 % Hb A1c is 7.8 mmol/l estimated average blood glucose.
see http://professional.diabetes.org/GlucoseCalculator.aspx for calculator based upon recent research and for explanation of HbA1c,
http://medweb.bham.ac.uk/easdec/prevention/what_is_the_hba1c.htm


Meters are allowed to be out by up to 20% compared with lab tests (10% each way). Most seem to be a bit more accurate than that. Temperature, altitude and of course clean fingers can also affect the result. They are more inaccurate at very low and very high levels.
I used to use an accuchek and now use a one touch, when I got the new one I did some side by side testing and found that they gave reasonably comparable results . I'm sure that all of us who test frequently have got the odd result that seems way out of line and then done a second test with a very different result.