I think I’m going to have to change meters from the ibg star because my mail order called to say test strips were on back order and they have no idea when they will come in.
Last I heard the free style lite was rated the most accurate. Is this still true? I thought I had one but if I did I must have given it away. Can I get a free one somewhere?
I’m wondering if I should switch to the precision xtra blood glucose and ketone meter since I have to carry it around with me now anyway and that will mean one less meter.
Has anyone used that meter for bg?
I don’t like the way the test strips go into the meter, at least the ketone test strips, they are kind of like the Relion meter, much thicker and harder to put in place. The ibg star has small thin test strips and the meter is very small, they’re much easier to manage and it’s easier to test more quickly.
I also need to figure out which ones are covered for me. Ibg star became not covered at some point but I managed to get them covered anyway.
The Freestyle Freedom Lite gets consistently high rankings in comparative reviews. It’s the one Bernstein recommends (I just checked a couple of days ago).
Freestyle lite and truetest are neck and neck in my thoughts and truetest costs about 1/10th I’ve opted to pay cash for them since my insurance stopped covering them because they cost less (and work far better) than the copay for the brand my insurance covers
The ADA’s Diabetes Forecast magazine published this March 2016 guide to buying a meter. It does not include a ranking by accuracy. Consumer Reports publishes a BG meter accuracy ranking but requires a magazine subscription fee for access.
Check out the Diabetes Forecast article. It gives pictures of all the meters, blood drop size required, test strip costs, and contact info for all the various companies.
I’ve been using the Roche Accu-Chek Aviva model for several years and I’ve been happy with it. I recently switched over to the Accu-Chek Aviva Connect model since it talks via Bluetooth to an app on my phone. The database on the app utilizes data from one of the artificial pancreas development sites to give a warning when the risk of risk of severe hypoglycemia goes up. It’s based on increasing variability and lows and can warn you about the problem times of day. I switched to the Connect model since it uses my current strips.
The glucose strips are identical to the ketone strips (except they’re blue rather than purple). I use this meter as my backup meter and ketone meter only. I use the Contour USB Next as my main meter (and have a Contour Next as my backup to that).
This sounds very interesting. It almost makes me want to switch (I was looking into it already because of the Bluetooth capabilities). But the one thing I hate about Accu-Chek meters is that it has those chips that go with each set of strips, and also that you cannot use the strips past six months after opening or after the expiration date. I used to use an Accu-Chek Mobile as my swimming meter and was really upset when I lost about 75 test strips because I didn’t go through them fast enough and it locked me out from using them.
Roche doesn’t use the calibration chips any longer. They went to a universal chip and then eliminated it altogether in the Connect model. I haven’t had the problem of getting locked out due to timeliness. I guess I’ve done a good job of keeping my stock stored so that I use the closest expiration date first. I’m working on the August 31, 2016 strips now. I don’t remember if I’ve ever been kept from testing due to an expiration date. The strips are probably good well past that time if stored well.
Thanks everyone, I will check these out… I’m leaning towards the precision x tra because it would mean only carrying two meters, that and my back up. But they both have thick test strips. I don’t think I want one that stops me from using expired strips. that is crazy. If they don’t do that I will consider the accu check too. I will see which ones are covered, mine are still covered by ins and are much cheaper that way. I will still use the relion meters as back ups because they run on batteries and the strips are pretty cheap at $9 for 50. They still cost much more than what my ins covers though. I will really miss my ibg star tiny meter though even though it’s a pain to charge them. They are so small you can just pop them in your pocket or a fanny pack if you’re going for a walk. Lately though I feel the relion meters are much more accurate when compared to dexcom when it’s accurate.
One thing I discovered recently with my pump was that I don’t have the most updated software which takes into consideration when your last bolus was and doesn’t just keep telling you to correct according to whatever number you add in for bg. Unfortunately they said I can’t update that software onto my current pump which is crazy. I’m not sure why they designed it that way. My pump rep is supposed to be contacting me soon to trouble shoot any possible issues with my pump that may have contributed to me being in hospital, so I will ask about that again.
Unfortunately many insurance companies negotiate a deal with only one meter co and takes your meter choice a way. They consider all meters as equal in accuracy. CVS/caremark deal is with OneTouch but my pump uses Counter. My experience is one touch normally has a +/-40 mdg accuracy range. Thank God for Dexcom.
Agreed, one touch are absolute garbage and that’s what my caremark plan allows for too… Instead of $75 copay (3 month supply) for garbage strips and potential arguements and disputes over how many I need… I’d gladly pay $45 cash for truetest on Amazon, which are tremendously higher quality and I answer to nobody…
The Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology has many articles on meter accuracy. Articles like this one look at 5 common meters and compare them for accuracy. There are many articles to go through and the answer of which one is the “most accurate” is fleeting. Strips are not well controlled so the best meter this month may not be the best one next month. And the other factor to consider is there are also studies that suggest that various individual factors can interfere with meter results, so, for instance, if have anemia of polycythemia vera your meter could give you false readings as shown in this paper.
Choosing a meter that is accurate for “you” can be a problem. One way to deal with this is to regularly compare your meter to lab values by taking a number of readings at the same time as your blood draw.
I also don’t believe that this is the case with new AccuChek devices either. But the reality is that this protection is meant to avoid us fromusing strips that expired. Strips cannot be guaranteed to have their top accuracy past their expiration date.
“Top Accuracy.” ROFL. Top accuracy is +/-20%. You mean it gets worse? Actually, we don’t know if they can be assured to be accurate past expiration, only that the manufacturers only tested them for that interval.
One can always reset the date and fool the meter. Heck, maybe expired strips are more accurate than new strips. Sometimes a brand new item isn’t as good as one that has aged, like a bordeaux or a CGM sensor or a good wife.
I hope they have changed it. I’d rather use expired strips knowing they might be slightly inaccurate (which all strips are, anyway) than waste $75 of my or my government’s money because perfectly good strips were forced to stop working.
I do that at every opportunity. It’s how I know my meter is accurate; which it is—far more accurate than others I have used, or that laughable +/-20% standard.
I’ve done this when I can remember. Last March, a few minutes before my lab blood-draw, I fingersticked 88 & 85 mg/dl. The lab BG came back at 87 mg/dl. This is the only method I know where a user can check their meter’s and their current strip’s accuracy. I wash with warm water and thoroughly dry my hands before doing the fingersticks.
A couple of years ago this study was highlighted at Diabetes Daily. It’s from 2012 so take it for what it is worth. The results did motivate me to abandon One Touch meters and start using Freestyle. I have not regretted the decision.
One way of considering the accuracy of BG meters is by repeatability. The most obvious test for me is when I do two finger sticks when starting a new Dexcom sensor. I understand that I cannot expect two tests to have identical results, but I do expect them to be in the ballpark. With One Touch meters (Ping and Verio), sometimes the two readings were close, but just as often they were 10 to 20+ points apart. Although the Freestyle occasionally has rogue results, most of the time the two readings are within a few points of each other or even the same.
For the last couple months I’ve done an informal experiment with my OneTouch (Ultra2) strips and Dexcom. About once a day, when things are stable, I’ve taken three strip measurements to compare with the Dex reading.
I expected the OneTouch results to be worse. The readings are usually pretty well grouped and are mostly less than 5% off the 3-strip average.
What interested me more was how far off the Dex could be, and without any consistent patterns to the differences. I’ve seen it commonly off by 25% or more, in both directions, for each of 4 different sensors.
I’ve benefitted greatly from having a CGM, and I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting how and when it’ll be different from “actual” bg (i.e., strip readings), but I was surprised how big the differences were during times when I would have expected it to have a value closer to a fingerstick.
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The details:
Testing only when:
Dex trend is stable, BGs in normal range, no active bolus, no new carbs, no other obvious difference-inducing condition like recent exercise etc.
Dex has been previously calibrated when it has wanted to be and during flat trend (this also done with a 3-strip average value). Experiment not conducted during first 24 hours of sensor calibration.
And of course thoroughly cleaned hands for finger stick.
Interestingly the difference between Dex and average strip values does not seem at all influenced by the age of the sensor (I use most all mine for 2 weeks).
