What Your Meters May Not Be Telling You

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1

Was interesting to explore the reasons behind a recent LifeScan glucose meter recall, and finding out that certain meters may be keeping secrets...

Would be interested to hear what you think about this.

http://www.diabetesmine.com/2013/04/what-your-glucose-meter-may-know-but-isnt-sharing.html

Thanks!

2

The recall is due to bugs in the software of the meter. Something that should not have happed in the first place. It seems that they did not handle an overflow exception correctly. Quite trivial to fix but a class of bugs that has caused the loss of the first Ariane rocket too. To me it shows that the processes for quality assurance are not meeting industry standards.

All manufacturers of meters decided to display very high numbers just as HI. At some point the accuracy gets that low that showing the number would be dangerous for the patient. If 1000 could mean 700 or 1200 any correction should be calculated with great margin for these inaccuracies. Just imagine you would correct for 1000 with (1000-110)/30 = 30 units. If 700 is the real blood glucose you would inject 10 units more than you actually need. This is the danger of showing numbers at these levels. The HI forces the patient to gradually correct the glucose down. This will prevent lows and is in general more healthy for your organs - especially the eyes - that have to adjust to the changes of the glucose level.