meter

[aliciaw23]

how are you supost to know which meter is right i have 2 one read 89 the other 109 big diffrents, i am hypoglycemic so i need my meter to be right.

[yannah]

good luck. they all have a pretty wide error rate. about 20% -it is frustrating, but ya have to go with your gut if you feel low and test.

[Mindstorm]

One way to figure out which is right is to use the testing solution that you should use for your meter. It's just salty sugar water I think, and it is sometimes dyed a certain color (I've had red before with my accuchek compact, then clear with my new tester). The strips you use should have something on the outside of the package which says what should be the acceptable range of blood sugars that should pop up when you use the testing solution. If the blood sugar that pops up (while using the correct testing solution) is way off compared to what the strip container says it should be, then you may have a bad batch of strips.

Another thing: My diabetes educator and the various diabetes docs I've had all said to pick ONE meter and stick with it. Just one meter at a time. The reason is because there will be some variation between meters and you should focus on comparing what your meter says with how you feel at the time. If you start to show symptoms of hypoglycemia and one meter says your sugar is 66 mg/dl and another says it's 78 mg/dl you're going to be confused as to what your threshold is for hypoglycemia symptoms. Just use one tester and base all your thresholds based on the symptoms you feel at the time versus what that one meter says your sugars are.

When you get your A1C tests done you can then get an idea of whether your meter has been showing you sugars that are too high or too low. From there you can decide whether or not to keep your blood sugars in a higher or lower target area, and you'll be basing this off of all of the results from ONE meter. I hope that makes sense.

While you may not be working with super-accurate tools in treating your diabetes, you can calibrate your treatment based upon those results and keep your diabetes in good control. ;)

[aliciaw23]

thank you both ive been using the meter that said 109 & just got a new one through the mail today the one that said 89 i tested them both with the salion & they both were in range so weird but my a1c waws 5.4 so i guess ill go with the 109 reading thanks

[genie86333]

Well, the solution does take that 20% allowed variance into effect, that's why both of them were in range - (109-20%=87.2) Just keep in mind that no meter is 100% accurate all the time - even using the same meter with the same drop of blood you may not get the exact same reading.

Anyway, 109 & 89 are both in the normal range, so whichever it is, I wouldn't stress the difference too much.