Question on new meter

[bookwormy]

Dear Folks,
You have helped me so much in the past. My insurance had me get a different meter. My original was a Bayer ascensia contour which I had one at home and one at my workplace and I never had a problem. The insurance company then gave me a list of approved meters so I picked Freestyle Lite. On my vacation (lst one in 14 years since I just finished putting 4 kids through college) I used the last test strips from my Bayer ascensia. Now I am on the Freestyle Lite. I went for bloodwork and before I left I checked on the meter it was 105 and on the bloodwork it was 85. No big sweat. I know it changes. Today fasting was 105 which is very unusual for me (even after 11 hours) so I used the solution to check and solution tested at 103 SO does that mean that my meter is running high numbers?
Barb

[mortis505]

Check the test solution for the approved ranges. It should be printed on the bottle.

[vegasvic]

Bookwormy-I have the exact opposite issue. I have 2 freestyle lites but now I have to switch to bayer products for insurance purposes. I haven't decided whether to use the Contour or the Breeze yet.

I'm not exactly sure what your question about the accuracy issue was. These easy to carry and use blood glucose monitors are designed to be manipulated by John Q Public so they are NOT very sophisticated. Since not everybody can have access to a laboratory analyzer these glucometers are a nice alternative but far from perfect.

The test solution has a fairly large range for just this reason. If your machine is not in that range then there is a problem, maybe the strips, maybe the solution, maybe the meter, maybe the way your doing it, its hard to say. If you're in range but your tests seem high or low it could very well be the meter but more likely a variation in the machine and/or test strips.

You could sit in a lab and test yourself several times and have them test your blood at the same time to see how accurate the machine is but that would get expensive. Maybe you'd be better off buying a small Contour test strip box and comparing it beside the Lite and see how they compare.

Just a thought.
vic

[art]

No 2 meters will give the ecact same reading.
My Bayer is close to my One Touch Ultra ll like about 5 points difference in both directions

The Ultra mini reads about 10 points lower than the Bayer and 5 points lower than the Ultra ll.

Get's you crazy if you let it.

Due to a bad set of strips in the Contour I no longer trust it.
I usually go with the Ultra as the truth.
The Mini is my travel companion.

Art

[cyberus]

Also look to see what the different meters are checking, whole blood or plasma.
I forget which but one reads higher normally than the other so if the bayer is one type and the Freestyle is another you may have to mentally adjust your "normal" numbers.

[eskimo]

I use the Breeze2 and have had pretty good results with it. I also like being able to easily download readings to their FREE software program. It has many different options and can even e-mail results to DOC. Bayer also is currently running a program that will discount even off the insurance co-pay, so I'm paying $5 per 100 this year.