Oh my - New Meter! The tools we use

Diabetes Technology Glucose Monitoring
1

So I have been given a new meter - an Abbott Freestyle.

I have been testing the past 2 days (each time with the same drop of blood):-

Johnson & Johnson ---- Abbott FreeStyle Optimum
1 touch simple select

92 ---- 110 (19% difference)
111 ---- 121 (9% difference)
100 ---- 128 (28% difference)
92 ---- 85 (8% difference)
78 ---- 66 (16% difference) (I felt low)

93 -----66 (40% difference) (not feeling low, but feeling 'distracted').

Abbott claims their meter is hospital equivalent. It seems like the J&J tests both lower (when I am high) and higher, when I am low. Will continue with some parallel testing.

I am particularly concerned that the J&J seems to miss lows. I have tested with the J&J when I felt low and got numbers like high 70s that I wouldn't worry about.... but what about when I test in the 60s and need to act fast. I would be even more concerned if I was actually in the 50s.

Very interesting. This would explain why my A1c was a bit higher than I would have expected from my tested blood sugars. I would treat a 128, but not a 100! But what if that 100 is really a 70? Very concerning.

I obviously need to pay more attention when I feel low. I had been testing with the J&J and if it showed high 70s / low 80s, I didn't worry... Though I always treated if it showed less than 70.

Also goes to show that our control is only as good as the meter that we are using... and to consider that most apparently give poor results.

My gut feeling is to trust the Abbott meter. Or maybe the truth is inbetween.

2

I've wondered if how sugar dissolves or doesn't dissolve in the blood might affect readings, like maybe people, in fact, have different amounts of sugar in different blood, this blood being 100 and that blood being 120 and some other blood being 85 or whatever? That might also explain the variance and some of the goofy results that appear when I've done bam-bam-bam testing...

3

The issue between meters and readings when testing same drop of blood comes back to the response of a particular strip technology to interferors. Some interferors - vitamin C will depress the readings while man made sugars will on others cause reading high as it is reading glucose D plus man made sugars leaked by intestines to blood system.

My most consistent repeatable readings tracking my cgms that had a glucose D molecular filter was the free style light.