Meter Checks

[gettingby]

I went to my endo today and they did a meter check on my meter. My meter gave my bg reading as 62, theirs gave it as 73. Is that a big enough difference that I should question my meter's accuracy?:confused:

[Who?]

I think it's borderline. I'd get on the horn to the manufacturer and see if they'll replace it, or at least send you some test solutions.

If they send you the solutions, let us know how the numbers come out.

You did check the coding, didn't you, if it is a meter that needs coding?

[notme]

What meter did they use Cin? I am not sure theirs would be any more accurate than yours. I don't think it is a big enough difference to worry about myself.

[princesslinda]

I've had a 10-15 point difference from one monitor to another at different times myself.

[statdeac]

Have you ever looked at the control solution acceptable range on a vial of strips? I have. Mine says that control solution should test between 83-125. Doesn't this imply some margin of error for the test?

Accuracy is very important in a meter; but, perhaps equally if not more critical is reliability - the ability of the same meter to give the same results on the same sample. This is what we base most decisions on, I think.

[panda1076]

When I switched from the One Touch Ultra to the Freestyle, I noticed the readings were very different from each other. One would say 60's and the other 80's. I have also noticed that the higher the BG the greater the difference. And the the closer to 100 I am, the smaller the variance between the meters. It bothered me at first but I just got over it.

Meters are allowed to have a +/- 10 or 15% variance. So the difference in readings still falls within reasonable ranges. So if your control solution still gives accurate readings, you probably shouldn't worry. The difference between 62 and 73 is not that much. 10% above 62 is 68, and 10% lower than 73 is 66. So they overlap.

[Who?]

Panda;

Your analysis is better than mine. It did not occur to me to see if reasonable errors overlapped.

Cheers!

[Dewey]

What meter did they use Cin? I am not sure theirs would be any more accurate than yours. I don't think it is a big enough difference to worry about myself.

I agree with Nancy, Cin. I wouldn't say that their meter is more accurate than yours, just because it's at a doctor's office. Also like Nancy said, the difference really isn't that significant. If it were like 100 points, then heck yeah, I'd be calling someone to get a replacement, but with a 20% margin of error on All meters, an 11 point difference isn't bad.

All that said, how did You feel? Did you feel low? If you did, then it's more likely I'd trust & believe your meter over theirs.

Just keep an eye on your meter & do some random checking (if/when able) to ensure it's working right for you.

[gettingby]

I was using my trusty UltraSmart. I had done a test that morning using my UltraSmart and Ultra2 and got a difference of 4 points between the 2 meters. I don't know what type of meter they were using but it took more than the 5 secs mine takes to get a reading.
I felt completely fine. No symptoms of a low. That actually shocked the lab tech. I was required by her to eat a glucose tab and promise to get some food as soon as I left in order to be allowed to leave.
I'll keep an eye on my meter and go from there. Thanks all !!!

[kgm0612]

Personally, I'd go by what YOUR meter said and not theres.

Back in December I had an outpatient procedure done. In came the nurse with her BS monitor.......this HUGE contraption that took an awful amount of blood and 30 seconds for the results. I squeezed more blood out of my finger and used my One Touch to compare results. Hers said 143 and mine read 117.

Karen

[jvetter18]

My One Touch Ultra Smart tested identically to blood work done at the lab. That's the only real way to tell if your meter is accurate. Test your self right as they are drawing blood at the lab. If they match, yep, of not, nope.

[cheryl]

I dunno i am going nuts with my meter, lately one says one number one number can be up to 25 pt difference and I think that is too huge in my opinion, a 100 vs a 125 is a big difference to me, especially since i am pumping, what do you do when you plug in the numbers grumble grumble I dont mind if it is a 10 pt difference but any larger can be the balance between going high or going low.......so I always go with the lower reading to avoid a hypo, but in your case the bgs' were both a low so it is a low.....

Cheryl

[REDLAN]

ah the joys of precision - because my meter is corrected to read the plasma BG, rather than whole blood, I have instructions on how to check my meter accuracy with the clinic's...

I'll skip the boring stuff and get to my favourite bit...

where it states that my meter is considered accurate if it produces a result within 20% of the result achieved at the clinic.

my meter's test range is 5.6 to 7.5 mmol what this means is that when I take a reading my result is accurate to +/- 1 mmol/l (+/- 18 mg/dl) - compared to the GOLD standard measurement (whatever that is - an assayed sample probably)

the point is not that the meter is accurate compared to some particular standard, but that it is accurate with itself...

try running a series of calibrations they should all be exactly the same - for good control the meter has to be consistent - it doesn't matter that it doesn't exactly tally with the clinical gold standard. The point is you need to have confidence that when comparing 2 readings that your meter can tell which one is higher - you need to know that 8.7 (157)is indeed higher than 7.7 (139) - although it would be more accurate to record them as 9 (160) and 8 (140)...

...besides which a completely accurate meter can't be made.