What Is the Normal Variability for a Blood Glucose Meter?
I recently bought a cheap blood glucose meter (the "TrueTrack Smart System" kit) over the internet to check out my blood sugars after a relative was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Since I have no symptoms and am not overweight I was just expecting to be reassured; but I found my 8hr fasting glucose over several days seemed to range from 98 to 124 indicating potential prediabetes. However, this morning I became confused on getting a reading of 144 despite not having eaten anything for over 12 hours. I decided to do several tests in a row and the results were: 144 130 117 111 126 110 104. I made sure my fingers were very clean and dry & of course used new strips & lancets each time. The meter did not come with glucose control solution but does have a test card you can insert in the strip port which then reads "OK". My question is, what is the normal range of reproducibility you can expect in readings from a blood glucose meter, and should I disregard these results and throw it out?
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Filed under Glucose Test Strips by on Jul 20th, 2010. Comment. 
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Comments on What Is the Normal Variability for a Blood Glucose Meter?
The FDA allows home meters to vary up to 20%.
Even the best meters will give a pretty high variation when tested like this.
Also, remember that blood sugar is a moving target, so even seconds later, your level could be different.
You should contact the company for the answer to the percentage. however, a true reading of blood glucose is done after 14 hrs of fasting. when you get up in the morning, don’t test your blood right away. wash your face, dress up, and then do your blood test. This allows your muscle to have moved a bit before the test. cut down on your sugar, carbohydrate and starch intake, walk fast atlest 30 min a day. The best way of testing for your blood sugar is to go to a doctor and ask for Hemoglobin A1c test. this will show how your blood glucose level have been doing for the past 90 to 120 days.
Sounds dodge to me, if you are going to invest in such implements, you may as well get a good one to start with. In Australia our glucometers measure in percentiles so between 5 and six is ok, six to seven is a grey area, higher than seven, you are probably diabetic.
You can’t expect a cheap glucose meter to be exactly right on. They usually make a claim somewhere as to how accurate the meter is.
But a range from 104 to 144! That’s pretty useless! If you can’t measure your BG closer than that there’s not much point in testing! I’d take it back to the store or else call the manufacturer and ask them to replace it.
well i would worry not having control solutions and your range is a bit wide (104-144) after fasting for 12 hours you should be below 110 or so, depending on the monitor. another consideration is , some machines these days have you wipe off the first drop of blood then use the second as this will give you a more reliable result. this could explain your eractic results. one more point i want to make….if you’ve not been diagnosed with diabetes and have no symptoms, i wouldn’t be obsessing over your daily blood sugar. i would however go see a doctor and ask his opinion. hope this helps.
**the numbers you are getting in one response come from austraulia and are much different…..also applies to canada and the uk…well everywhere but america, but america hasn’t caught up yet***
Walgreens sells a disposable blood sugar keychain device I’ve used before. 35 bucks, cheaper than anything else.
Though I will see once I was going through a hypoglycemic shocking crisis, and it stopped working on me.
I have read there is a 10% to 20% difference in the readings you get on your meter. Because of this, I check mine against what the doctor’s office gets when it checks my fasting levels. In other words, before they draw my blood, I stick my finger and compare the results later. They never match and are usually off five or so points either way.