Glad to see I am not the only one who finds the Presto is a great deal higher than normal!
i get my freestyle lite test strips for free and I have a MA commonwealth care insurance (medicaid basically).
Dan, your reading from the FreeStyle was within the FDA’s guidelines. The FDA insists that the readings from bg meters be + - 20% of a lab reading for the meter to be considered accurate. Your lab result is 115, which means your bg meter reading had to be between 92-138 for it to be considered accurate. So, it is officially “accurate”.
ha - yeah i know - an error of 19% is still a passing grade. i’m just wondering if there’s a cheaper one with a low margin of error. but if freestyle lite, one of the most expensive ones, has that big an error, i suppose i shouldn’t get my hopes up. also, my current thinking is - if a cheap one like the presto is just as inaccurate as an expensive one like the freestyle lite, why pay more? thanks for all the replies by the way.
americandiabeteswholesale.com has tons of free meter deals with the purchase of a few boxes of strips, so i may as well try a few out. maybe i’ll find a cheap one with acceptable accuracy.
jeggers - maybe we’ll do an advocate meter test. 11 dollars a box sounds nice.
FreeStyle has a program where you pay only a 15$ copay. It’s free to sign up just go to the website. My Dr wrote me for 200 strips a month and I only pay 15$!
is that even if you don’t have prescription drug or durable medical equipment coverage? or is your insurance company in some way covering it?
Maybe it is just the ones shipped to PA that have a problem!
For me, it’s the opposite. One Touch is less accurate than FreeStyle. On One Touch, my numbers are always about 30-40 pts lower than what they really are. And it doesn’t matter which One Touch it is I’m using, as I have several ones I’ve tried. It’s waaaaay off. I’ve come to suspect that there must be something in our bodies, or blood, that meters respond differently to, and however it is they are made, will make a meter or another be more accurate to a particular type of person. Those One Touches, however bad they are to me, they work very well for my husband. Odd, isn’t it?
After 17 years with diabetes and having used multiple meters from different companies, I feel confident in saying that there isn’t much difference in the accuracy from one meter company to another – overall. Within an individual, there can be substantial differences. What’s most important is that the meter works for you and you are happy with it, regardless of the price of the strips. The only way to know which of the meters is best for you is to try them out and eliminate them, one by one.
BTW, some of the “off-brand” meters, such as Target’s own meter, are actually AgaMatrix (Keynote, Presto) meters. Before you buy another meter, check the box to see who manufacturers it. If the Advocate meter is made by AgaMatrix, you might not need to spend the money to know whether or not it works for you.
LOL! I got mine direct from the company after I went to the NYC Expo in 2008 and called customer service to complain that their booth was largely unmanned and there was no information about when the Wireless Jazz. Long story short: My complaints and comments got me a free Presto meter and 10 strips. Tried them, compared the results to both my OT UltraSmart and Precision Xtra, found the Presto to read much higher than either the UltraSmart or the Precision Xtra.
The one I bought came from a pharmacy here then I called the company and they exchanged it. That one had some other issues going on also because the backlight didn’t work. I was getting readings 20-30 points higher than my Aviva on both and the lab confirmed that it was reading high. It was the replacement that I tested with the lab. I tended to believe the one that said I was 45 when the sweat was rolling off me & I felt low!
Hoping we can get someone to help with this:
https://forum.tudiabetes.org/topics/help-any-experiences-with-inaccurate-bg-readings
I get the lowest cost Reli-on from Walmart. $10 for 50 strips.
They are very expensive strips though, so even with the discount, it can still be quite expensive.