Is your meter lying to you?

#1

YIKES: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/stop-obsessing-over-the-numbers/

So…for fun, I just tried a blood ketone test on my meters, same finger/time/drop of blood. One was 1.1mmol/L and the other was .7 mmol/L.

Discuss. :open_mouth:

My Blood Glucose Meter
(Ethan) #2

This is a well-documented phenomenon. The accuracy of a meter is something like within 20% with 95% confidence. That means that 95% of the time, the meter will be within 20% of the actual value. Thus, if your actual blood-glucose level is 90 mg/dL, a meter should read between 72 and 118 mg/dL 95% of the time, and 5% of the time it will read something completely different!

#3

That is mind-blowing. Think of how people’s days, diets, subsequent food choices, moods, etc. can be devastated by that variance and the numbers they see on the screen.

And, what’s worse is that even knowing your good point above doesn’t help because you still have to wonder if the 20% variance of the number you see is up OR down!

(Ethan) #4

It is scary. I have had entire batches of strips show higher than others. I used to use the UltraBlue strips, and every so often I would get a batch where every strip shows 50+ points over what any strip from another batch would show.

(KCKO, KCFO) #5

Isn’t this the reason you should not obsess over the readings? I am happy with the cheapo breathalyzer. I know it isn’t totally accurate but tells me when I have gotten into the ball park and the rest is up to my food choices.

(Cheryl Hall) #6

@collaroygal

Ethan is testing blood Glucose not Ketones.

@EZB - wow those numbers are all over the place. Makes me wonder about my Glucose meter too!

(Ethan) #7

I do wonder about the ketone accuracy, too, actually. I have no idea what the tolerance for error on the meter is. I had my highest reading yet on that today: 2.9!

#8

This is probably why docs test HbA1C. The average bg number my a1c indicates is as much as 60 points less than what it seems like it should be, based on my home meter.