Glucometer Accuracy and Labs! Standards please!

I have been in professional labs my entire life. When we measure voltage, temperature, meters, inches, pounds, time .....anything! and we want to know how accurate, or inaccurate, we are ...we must have some sort of a standard to compare to all previous measurements.
One day I was diagnose with type 2. Suddenly I was using a glucometer without a standard. My doctor sends blood to a lab and I don't know what standards they are using(and I get cutoff when I inquire at any level!!). The glucometers seem to "say" they are accurate +_20%(80-120 mg/dl are the same, and 100-140mg is 120+_20%approx.). The only standards I can find are not near enough the 100 mg/dl targets to be of any real use (50, 160, 200, 240-350).

No personal standards are "easily or usually" available. In the literature I read temperature, technique, strip variations, metering variations, certain drugs(probably with certain individuals), illness, ....and several other things can lead up to 50% error (the highest I have read or experienced...without standards).

I have been diagnosed type 2 for 4 years now , gone to hundreds of support groups meetings,…seen various doctors, ADA, Joslin, attempted to engage numerous academics and ...including this list and others ....and have never been able to resolve this.

I have taken several 1-3 month breaks(this was the latest) over the last 4 years for this "quest", tried to calm down out of complete frustration, and each time returned more determined that I will not accept this important, if not life threatening gap " in this medical technology continue to exist, if at all possible.

I realize very few understand this simple concept of using a “standard solution” routinely, but it really isn’t complicated, and can be quite simple. Most people react negatively because their Doctors or their Diabetic training has not mentioned this in their training. It appears to be “new”. As a Diabetic I contend it should not have been overlooked. This could (and in my opinion probably does) have the effect of giving you better control and “understanding” of exactly what effects your BG levels.
If we don't eliminate the confusion, then we must live daily with this confusion. I see this in every diabetic I know.

Has anyone else noticed this? Any suggestions, similar experiences ? I don’t think we can ignore or suppress this issue any longer. We need solutions. I have never trusted glucometry to less than 50% accuracy. Professional labs seem to be immune from any real accountability to the patient. This is just unacceptable.

Post Edited (wa5ekh) : 7/16/2006 9:57:34 AM (GMT-6)

The meter is an indicator of blood sugar levels, much the way a sun dial is an indicator of the time. It is much more important to focus on exercise and your food program than it is to be frustrated over meter inadequacies. Number accuracy can be affected by your level of hydration, the thickness of your blood, the size of the drop, the humidity in the air, the level of your batteries in the meter, the age of your test strips.... I could go on and on...

Lighten up on yourself and live a little. Do your food program... enjoy your family and friends... go outside and plant something or paint something... Life is short and ain't none of us gonna get out of it alive anyway so just do your best and KOKO.

Finally!.... a constructive response! Thanks! I thought honestly everyone was in complete denial over this issue, though I now ALL Newbies are terribly frustrated by this problem. I'll look it up. .....still looking and wondering why more folks don't express their frustration on this very basic issue.

Now I'm still Normoglycemic by A1c(if that is truely reliable)...an average you know....started exercising at 300#...gained 20#+_3. After three-plus years of careful restrictive dieting still not reverting to hypogycemic spikes above about 150 ...and much rarer!!... still compulsive benger...but less and less....but cannot tolerate the volumes I use to ..that seems good. Still unmedicated. Still going to support groups and Overaters Anon. (Day by Day Survival)
Still waiting to see if I revert(honeymoon thing you know). Trying to safely loose another 100#, but recently was diagnosed with abnormal EKG....."minor and monitoring!!" quote the Cardiologist. Stiil feel much better than 3+ years ago at about 360-380# and A1c of 8.70(or 9.1)...that was my bottom/top! Need to loose wt and improve my health to set the example to set the example for family friends and others(and me..) in support groups. God knows what damage I caused when I wasn't being responsible....I have seen considerable improvement in my mother's bgs and health (at 80, type 2 insulin therapy). Uses much less!!! insulin than she use to. Got her diet under control and found several trigger foods that were making her "brittle"....stable now! Much lower A1cs too.
Still want to know when I measure....not days weeks or months(A1c) if my bgs were close to my Targets. But without standards(at 100, 140, 180) I can only guess by weight loss or gain(and wt gain is a fuction of exercise which i have to add) too. It would actually make things much!! simpler if standards were available.

How do you avoid hypogycemia on Lantus? That ust be difficult to manage. I have a guess, but I'd rather hear your experience.

Chutsman -

Good luck finding anyone in the industry that thinks that we need that much accuracy. The other side of the coin is the technical difficulty of making a machine affordable with that accuracy. There are new developments now that will change how you check blood glucose levels, possibly anyway.

One company is developing a glucose monitor that reads the inside of your eyes. Non-invasive and supposed to be pretty accurate.

Another company has already released a machine for doctor offices that use lighe reflected off the patients skin to give readings to determine more accurately than a fasting blood test. No fasting is required. It probably won't be developed for home use, but the techniolgy will be looked at by other companies and maybe filter down to us.

wa5ekh,
Sorry to take so long to get back to you... June brides are the worst! And the weather has been extra special hot for baking, too...

about the Lantus, because it's a long acting insulin without a peak time you don't have the highs or lows... no hypoglycemia attacks yet, and I've been on it for 15 months. I had oral meds that gave me more trouble! I'm very pleased with the way it works and I only do one injection a day, at bed time. You might really like this med. It's people friendly.

Hi there!Glucometers measure" capillary blood "for glucose values and laboratories draw blood  from veins for glucose values(venous sample).A difference in values is to be expected in the range of 5 to 15% between the two measurements and as long as the measurements between the glucometer and lab results are within this limits,we can accept this and be happy that our glucometers are working just fine!Laboratories usually run a quality control test every day before drawing samples and compare it with a central lab for accuracy.Subjective differences in lab values are to be expected even when two technicians draw the same venous blood sample as the pippeting will differ.It is an accepted fact that the same venous sample tested in three different labs will give three different results,but should be within acceptable range of variability.This is my penny,s worth of contribution of this vexing problem of comparison between lab values and glucometer values!

I just got a new meter a coupel days ago. Accu-check Compact Plus - I love the machine. However, it reads something like 18 hight than the older Ane Tough Basic. The One Touch has always tested very close to the lab tests. Both meters check ok with the test solution. The Accu-check people said it could be of by 15 percent and still be okay. Well, I am assumeing that it is reading high. My A1c just 3 weeks ago was 5.2 and I am getting all readings above 100 on the new machine and in the mid to high 80's on the old one. Fasting numbers, that is. I was happy with the lower numbers and believe that they were correct. Now what? It will be a while before I can test against the lab sample...... Accuracy is not a problem unless you think that the meter is wrong, then we get concerned. 15% is a terrible standard..

Now that 60% of the USA's population is overweight, more will be prone to developing diabetes.  And in the case of the children the situation is getting worse in the overweight department.  By the time they approach adulthood, it is likely that 80% of the pop. will be overweight and diabetes will become the #1 ailment.  Maybe then there will be an "act of Congress" to make the glucometers more accurate or to have a test solution that has a tighter range.  Really the test solution that is now provided is useless.