Dear Mike
Comparing 2 meters tells you nothing about the accuracy. Only comparaison against the lab results will do that.
Dear Chris.
Dont assume that. Take your meter next time to your blood test and do 3 readings with your machine and compare the average to the lab result. Report all 4 values on this site and we will see. This inaccuracy of the modern 5 second meters is really annoying and it does not give us the patients any confidence. 10 years ago i had an Ascentia meter that took 60 seconds to make the measurement but wow if you compared it to the lab test it was always 5% below.
Oh, the Freestyle has decent precision - repeatability of results - but the accuracy is pretty bad. Last time I was at the endo, his Aviva said 135 and my Freestyle said 175, 172 on repeat (and lemme tell you, that skewed my averages . . . ) I’ve switched over to the Aviva because it seems to be both accurate and more precise, and it’s easier to get a good test.
Dear Dov. Wow what a difference between the 2 meters how can we survive. Some past blogs said aviva was reading too high.
Im surprised noone has discussed the glucose meter thats often used in glucose monitoring studies alongside a normal home meter… The HemoCue… Whatever happened to their plans for a consumer device? … Most of you will go running when you meet one… Its not light on the blood, the cost of the cuvettes OR features… But its extremely accurate (when maintained properly)…
I use the One Touch UltraSmart because it has the ability to track it all on the computer and I can print and take charts and logs to the doctor when I go. I do have another One Touch meter and they seem to be pretty much the same as far as readings. Not sure how they would compare to another brand however.
I wish they made all meters so you can plug them into a USB port and download the information into software that does all the charting and work for you.
Im pretty much convinced the reason why they do NOT do this is so they “lock” you into buying the cable from that particular manufacturer, kinda the same way cell phone chargers currently work… (though they have voted to make the mini-USB a charging standard)…
Id like to see a Mini-USB connector on all glucose meters… More interesting and useful however, is the idea of using Medical Bluetooth (there is a standard for medical devices to transact using Bluetooth)… which Agamatrix is working on with their Jazz meters, and I know Lifescan is doing something with the One Touch Ping (their pump meter)… that has something to do with wireless/BT… But why sell a standard cable and support it when you can make a quick cash buck for using something of your own design… expand the Gilette Razor blade model of selling the razor at or below cost and screw people for the blades, to data cables…
You do realize that most strips cost the manufacturer around 24 cents and the rest is all markup!!!
Little trivia fact… there have been “generic” test strips for some meters in the past… In fact one company did such a good job and reduced the price so much for their generic strips, they were bought out to produce the strips for one of the largest meter brands… The company, Iverness Medical, The product, Generic Bayer Glucometer strips, The company that bought them out… Lifescan…
The markup on strips is so high thats part of the reason why these companies have such stellar customer support, cuz they really dont lose any money for sending you promotional items and things, cuz it is ALL made on the markup on the strips… Biggest scam in the diabetes industry IMHO
The thing i dont understand is why one cannot enter a lab result as a calibration value, or off a higher accuracy device (My HemoCue comes to mind), where periodically you take a sample the same time you get a lab done (most techs will give you a drop of blood from the same draw they are sending to the lab), run the result through the meter and tag it for calibration, then get the lab result later and enter it in to the meters log for the same time and the meter will try to re-adjust its calibration curve to match the lab value more closely…Similar to the CGMS’s and such
The mini-USB connections are still proprietary to the brand of meter. From what the manufacturers tell me, it has something to do with medical information security.
I don’t know of any meters that USE a mini-USB yet… Medical information security my ■■■… its so their competetors cant make software to pull data out of their meter… gotta protect their propritaryness…
they are full of crap…
there is a complete specification and notes on how to read the lifescan meter out, and there are third party softwares that can read multiple brands of meter…
they are feeding you a line of manure under the false pretense of medical information safety, if that was really the problem, they could do some pin/crypto voodoo when its plugged into the USB port if they had to (similar to a locked hard disk)… they dont WANT to … Do you really think the cables they use now are secure… No they arent… do they verify data… Most do…i know when you use the serial or serial/usb cable on the lifescan checksum data is sent for every glucose reading pulled… and software is to toss out any value that fails checksum…
Hell id like to see a meter with a mini-usb and a flash card in it… even take larger cards to hold more readings, and also save a PNR similar to a medicalert USB fob.
No flash cards, just mini-USB cables – proprietary USB cables. Wavesense (Agamatrix) meters, Advocate meters, I think Clever-Chek also uses a mini-USB interface to the meter, and all of the newer brands coming from Asia…
The information is still stored in the meters, and each meter apparently exports data in a different data format, not all of which can be easily exported to other programs (I’ve looked at the CSV exports, many ignore most of the native data, and each is in a different data presentation).
Im wondering if this is something similar to how Sony has a resistor in their propiratary firewire cable on one of the pins
I use the bayer contour
I am using Glucotrend meter there is difference 15% reading if i chk at same time from lab so in all meters there is some difference in my openion they are just to give idea of you glucose level.
Now a days I am using insulin humilin N 40 units+ Humilin R 20 units in morning and N 20 units + R 20 units in night but my suger after lunch remained un control and i am gaining weight rapidly will any one give me suggestions to overcome on both matters
I noticed nobody has commented on your admitted eating disorder. How are you doing with that?
Just letting you know you’re not the only diabetic with an eating disorder…
My latest meter is a Precision Xtra (supplied by the Air Force). Does anyone have any idea of it’s accuracy? Everytime I visit my doctor, his nurse always takes away my meter, and downloads the information in it, so he can see how I’m doing on my BG. I have several other meters stashed away, that I have garnered throughout the years, and I have BOTH the Freestyle meters. Liked them a lot, but the Air Force won’t pay for the testing strips.
I thought the cost of test strips was pretty much the same from brand to brand…or is it that the Air Force has “connections” with the makers of Precision Xtra???
hi,all just wondering if anyone has used or know of antone using The Guardian® REAL-Time Continuous Glucose Monitoring System its worth about $2500 for the set up and about$750 a month to use but you dont have to prick your fingers and it dose 233 real time reading a day,tells you what you bsl is and wether it is on the way up or down and beeps to lett you know if its to high or low!!!well worth it in my books
Hi Jeffrey, I wish I was using one, well not the Guardian specifically but because I am already using a Paradigm pump I’d go for its compatible Minilink CGMS(Continuous Glucose Monitoring System) both from Medtronic as well. The pump cost itself is covered by private health insurance but the CGMS is not and the last price was around the $1250 mark. Sensors were abount the same price. Both the Guardian and Minilink work in the same way but keep in mind that there is still a 15-20 minute lag in the actual blood sugars so the numbers reported are from 15-20 minutes ago, you can’t go acting /adjusting anything based on them. The trend (indicating what direction your sugars are going and how fast) is more useful.
I’d get one at the drop of a hat if the pricing was a little more reasonable. Guess we’ll have to get onto the Australian Government to get these funded as well.
Cheers
Glen