Reliability of home A1c testing.

[flowerbabe68]

I just received my test results for my first home A1c test. It is 6.2. (A little yahoo here) Can I trust the Reli On A1c home test? My last hospital lab A1c was 6.6. I want to believe this home test result. Just wanted to see how close your home tests have been to hospital lab testing. On diet and exercise for now,dropped 30-35 #,wt. is plateauing a little, getting more difficult to lose. But sticking with it as is a lifelong routine . Your information sure has helped me keep at it. :flowers:

[sarahspins]

I've always gotten results within .2% of my doctor's in-office machine.. so if you feel you did the test correctly I would trust the results. If you didn't fill the circles completely or had any other reason to worry, then worry, but otherwise, don't :)

[Josselyn]

I just received my test results for my first home A1c test. It is 6.2. (A little yahoo here) Can I trust the Reli On A1c home test? My last hospital lab A1c was 6.6. I want to believe this home test result. Just wanted to see how close your home tests have been to hospital lab testing. On diet and exercise for now,dropped 30-35 #,wt. is plateauing a little, getting more difficult to lose. But sticking with it as is a lifelong routine . Your information sure has helped me keep at it. :flowers:

I used the Bayer home A1c test several days before my A1c at the MD's office. The Bayer test said I was 6.0 and the lab's test stated I was 6.1. Pretty darned close.

BTW, congratulations on your progress, flowerbabe68. Don't let the plateaus get to you. I find I can go three weeks without the scale budging, then I get up one day and it shows I've lost 3-4 pounds. Even while plateauing, have you noticed that your physical size is shifting anyway? I've actually changed sizes twice during plateaus. :D

[flowerbabe68]

Yes,Jossalyn, I have dropped almost 2 sizes. My clothes are too big,so I have to buy new ones.(I'm trying not to smile)Thanks,everyone,for the encouragement.:flowers:

[ShottleBop]

I have used the Bayer A1cNow as well, and it came up with an A1c of 5.9 the day before I had blood drawn for a lab test that came up 5.4 (which was much closer to what I expected, based on my meter readings). Similarly, the first time I tried the Bayer A1cNow, three months after a lab test in March showed up 5.3, the Bayer machine coughed up a 5.8--with no change in my meter readings.

Based on that, and based on a report from this past June by Dr. Bill Quick (over at Diabetes Health, check for Dr. Quick's Shareposts, and look for "What if you have an unexpected lab value"?), where he mentions one (unnamed) vendor of at-home tests whose tests were running high, I think my A1cNow tests ran way high: But the A1C result was 6.6 - up almost a full percentage point (which is roughly equivalent to a change in blood glucose of about 35 mg/dl). Boy, was that frustrating - no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't think of a reason why it would have shot up that much.

So, off to the other vendors. The second result was 5.7. And the third result was also 5.7. Very interesting (and very reassuring to me about my diabetes control!) but it certainly did make me wonder about the 6.6 value - so I went back to that vendor, and got another A1C test (that's four in two days - certainly a record for me, and one that is likely to stand for a very long time).

6.3 this time. Totally frustrating. Next stop: to find the most knowledgeable person around at this exhibit booth and talk to him/her. I did. First, I pointed out the two results from his A1C device were "off" by 0.3 points from each other - which he indicated (and I agreed) could be within the range of variability of these devices.

Then I showed him my printouts of the other two results (both 5.7) - and asked him what he thought now. I presumed he'd probably bad-mouth the other companies' technology, but he totally surprised me by doing the reverse - he admitted that his company's readings were running high, and he didn't know why. He mentioned it might have been something to do with shipping, and that the company was saving some of the kits for future reassessment.

As it happens, Dr. Quick posted another sharepost just last Thursday, the 22nd, titled "Never trust a single lab test", in which he discusses his experience at a more recent trade show: he had four tests done at the show: two with a Bio-Rad device intended for use by doctors in their offices (the "in2it"), and two with the A1cNow: But as happened to me last summer when I got an A1C at a different meeting, I was surprised at the result. My insulin pump has been working just fine, and I've been running a bit lower on my BG levels than a few months ago. My A1C has been consistently below 6.0 for quite a while, so I sort of expected the A1C value would be lower than 6.0. But the result was 6.2. Yuck! [NOTE: THIS WAS WITH THE BIO-RAD. THE A1CNOW METER THIS TIME GAVE LOWER READINGS.]

I vaguely recalled that I had wandered past another exhibit booth that offered A1C testing, and now I hunted for it, and finally I found it: MSD was promoting their diabetes pills and also offering A1C testing with Metrika's "A1CNow" device. So I had another chance to check my A1C. And this time, the result was 5.4. Wow!

I slept on the issue overnight, then decided to get repeat testing the next day. Bio-Rad's device: 5.9. Metrika's: 5.7. Hmmm. If I had not gotten the tests the day before, these look pretty good: the A1C test is generally thought to have about 0.5 points variability from test to test so that these two results only 0.2 apart are no sweat.

Now I had 4 results, and the average of the four tests was 5.8, which is about where I expected I would be. But notice what the conclusion might have been if I had only done one test the first day:


* If the only test I had done was the one that had been 6.2, I would have been misled to think my A1C was higher than previously, and I'd have to tighten up my diabetes control to get back on track.

* Or, if the only test had been the one with the 5.4 result, I would have been misled to think that I was doing just great, and my biggest concern would have been avoiding hypoglycemia.

As a result of this little episode, I find myself reiterating the exact same conclusion that I offered last summer: don't trust a single value of any lab test, anytime, anywhere, if it's different from what you expected. Instead, get it rechecked.

I think that (i) the two A1cNow tests that I got from Walgreens got were affected by something that happened during shipping, and (ii) self-testing with your meter (depending on the frequency with which you test) can give you a heads-up as to the possible inaccuracy of a single A1c test. (Unfortunately, the Bayer A1cNow tests come two to a box--if events during shipping caused the first one you use to be off, chances are the second one will have the same issues. Bummer.) The other thing I find eye-opening is that we should expect variations of up to 0.50 in our A1c measurements--another reason, to my mind, why self-testing is worth the trouble.

[jps]

If it's relatively close to what you suspect, I'd trust it. However, the variability for less expensive tests is going to be a bit higher than the expensive tests. It's just the difference in technology (sometimes, but not always).

Good job with the weight loss. Oh - don't forget to take a picture/inventory of the clothes you are going to donate (if you do). I cannot believe how much I was able to write off to deductions with my clothes - without even cheating. Overall it made about a $2,500 dollar difference even taking depreciation into account.

[flowerbabe68]

Thanks,Jps,for the reminder. I am donating the clothes to our local women's shelter.

[Lloyd]

I got an "A1c now" test done at the diabetes expo, 5.5.

3 days later at the local hospital, 5.4.

-Lloyd