Concerns of Meter Readings

Really need some advice and or reassurance here, so any comments would be welcomed especially from health care professionals. In my last post I raised concerns about the accuracy of my meter, after a number of hypos this week. Well having had a long conversation this evening with a representative from Wave sense and conducting two tests while on the phone with them, the results over three different manufactures meters where more or less the same. Fears put aside and feeling assured that the inconsistency I had found and the resulting hypo had been down to other factors and the Wave Sense jazz was in fact working correctly.
Well it came to my bed time test and I thought I would share the results with you. I preformed three tests on three different meters with interesting results. It has to be remembered that I believe the meter use different technologies, but I would expect the result to be similar. The greatest concern is the widely varying results given by the Wave Sense Jazz.
Test 1
True Result – 9.3
Wave sense Jazz -12.1
AccuCheck Nano – 10.1
Test 2
True Result – 9.7
Wave sense Jazz -14.4
AccuCheck Nano – 10.3
Test 3
True result – 9.2
Wave sense Jazz -9.4
AccuCheck Nano – 9.2

Each meter was charged with the same drop of blood and each test was done within a minute of the previous one. Now as you can see if I had believed the Jazz on test two I would taken a larger correction and potentially gone hypo in the night.

Meters have to be within 20% of the real BG reading. Looking at the readings above, and assuming with the 14.4 figure that the TR and AN might be reading a bit low, the WSJ would just sneak in. Do you still get hypo symptoms when having a hypo? If so, next hypo, I would test using all three and see if they are all showing you as being below 4.

Are you planning on having an HbA1c any time soon? A recommendation is to check your BGs as close as possible to your blood being taken for the HbA1c. When the results come back, part of the report should have what your BG reading was at the time of the test. This should be about as accurate as you can get, and then you can check your meter(s)' results against that result.

I am having similar concerns with the Accu-check Expert. I received one today, and I love its features, but because I had a whole bunch of test strips from my old meter to use up, I thought I would test on the same drop of blood. The Expert has been giving me much higher readings then my old meter all day. Finally before dinner, I dug out every meter I have in the house, and ran a test with all 5 of them.

Here are my results:

Meter 1: My backup Optium Exceed Freestyle: 11.4
Meter 2: True Result: 10.4
Meter 3: My current meter - Optioum Exceed Freestyle: 10.7 (using strips from the same pack as meter 1)
Meter 4: Accu-chek Mobile - 10.6
Meter 5: Accu-chek Expert - 12.6.

With the exception of the Expert, the rest are all within 1 mmol/L of each other which I can live with, but the Expert is 2 mmol/L different to its sister meter from Accu-chek, and 2.2 from the lowest result. I am pretty sensitive to insulin, and being out by 2 mmol/L is an issue for me.

This seems quite dangerous - a reading from the Optium today told me I was 4.5, so not safe to drive, while the Expert said 5.4, in which case I would be OK to drive. It also increases the likelihood of hypos as I might take too much insulin.

I'll discuss with Accu-chek this week. Perhaps I have a bad batch of strips. I doubt that the other four meters are ALL on the low side. I tend to get hypo symptoms bang on 4.0 with the Optium, but that may be that because I have been using it for the last 2 years, I have trained my body into getting hypo symptoms at whatever BG level I have when the Optium reads 4.0.

All the best with it, and hope that you get some resolution.

Warwick.