I was recently prescribed a new glucose meter, the accu-check advantage. I had a reading of 226 at dinner last night, injected insulin, then I tested three hours later and the reading was still 226. I thought it was weird that the meter said there was no change in my blood sugar during three hours so I retested and the meter said 194 and then retested right after that and got 178. What?? Why the difference in the readings? Has anyone had problems with this meter?
I have gotten different reading within 3 minutes. But if you are really worried you can check the meeter and see if its ok or it could be your test strips. Sometimes leaving test strips in too hot or too cold. You can check the strips and the meter with the calibraiton solutions.
A home meter can, by FDA standards, be off by +/- 20%. So that 226 could have been between 181 and 271 and by current accepted (grrr) pharmaceutical standards, been the ‘same’. That 178 was slightly outside range, but the 194 was, by home meter standards, exactly the same reading.
It’s very frustrating, I know! For me a difference between 226 and 178 would be more than a whole unit of insulin difference on the correction insulin…ugh!
Hi Marilyn,
My name is Rob Muller, and I work for Roche Diabetes care in Indianapolis. I’m sorry you had a problem with your new meter. If you haven’t done so already, please call our customer care center at 1-800-858-8072. They’re really good folks and they would be happy to answer any questions or concerns you may have.
If there’s anything else I can help you with, please don’t hesitate to reply here, or you can email me at rob.muller@roche.com anytime.
Let me know how things go, okay?
Rob