There are allowable tolerances and this is one reason that many doctors use the A1c for the "standard".
BUT
We use them to keep tabs on what is happening in our bodies. If your meter tells you that you have a 90 before breakfast and a 130 after, then you know about how your body is reacting. If you are really a 85 before and a 125 after, that difference is still in the allowable tolerances. It is your guide. What you want to see is what your rise is. This is where we can see what foods change our levels.
Is it 100% accurate? No, but either is your scale. You weigh one thing at home and another at the doctor's office and if you are brave, you weigh something different at the grocery store scale. BUT they all give you a close enough number to know what you weigh. It really is the same idea.

All I am saying is that we use them as a tool to tell us what is going on inside. Type 1's have to depend on those readings far more than Type 2's unless they are on insulin. So keep using your meters.

Everytime I go into my doctor appointment, they test me. Then I test myself with my meter to see if I am close to their numbers and I usually am. So I am comfortable with the accuracy of my meter.

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Last edited 4 months ago

No. The standard is within 20% of your actual blood sugar if your blood sugar is over 75 or within 15 points if you are under 75.

The reason they are not designed to be very accurate is because it would make them very expensive and not very user friendly. They have to make a trade, reduce the accuracy a bit which increases the portability and usability and decrease the price.

The reason we use them is to gain a general picture of what's going on, track trends, see what foods do and generally experiment. A lab will give you the accuracy which is why you should get blood work done regularly.

You can buy a very accurate meter but it requires a lot of blood (5 times as much as OneTouch Ultra and Beyer meters, 8 times as much as accuchek aviva and 16 times as much as freestyle meters), can take up to 5 minutes to give you a result, is about1.5 inches thick, 6.5 inches long and 3.5 inches wide, weighs close to a pound, costs several hundred dollars and about $5 a test.

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Last edited 4 months ago

I can really use one meter, being on the pump, my meter radios my pump with my result.

I would think if you are on a sliding insulin scale, two meters with different readings wouldn't be good.

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