Diabetes Community

Each individual meter is different. To know how really accurate your meter is you need to take it to the lab with you and compare results. I have always had good luck with the freestyle. My current meter reads 5% different from the lab draw value. But as I said, each individual meter is different.

Cora

I hear you on that - when I took my Contour meter into the lab for comparison it was only 2 pts off. I am glad to hear you like your free style. When I get it I will take it in as well to see where it ranks. Thanks for your reply. Deb

Don't forget to take it in more than once. You want to see how consistent it is.

Cora

Hi Deb,

I have used a freestyle flash for about four years. I have been very satisfied with it and had no problems. My numbers are pretty consistant and it has tested very close to the lab.

The Freestyle Flash and Lite use the same strips. I really like the strips because they have a little barb on them which makes hitting the smallest blood sample easy.

di

Thanks for your input, I hope I am just as satisfied with it as I have been with the Contour. I understand with the Free Style one can test in many different places so that is good, it gives the fingers a break. Deb

Teddybear, I have been using the FreeStyle for about a year now. I have five meters (no jokes please.) OneTouch, FreeStyle, Bayer and the various lites. The FreeStyle comes as close as any of the others I have used. I tested them all on myself and they were 1 - 2 points within the other.

I like the FreeStyle strips, too. Not as much of a sample needed.

I had a bad low once and actually thought my FreeStyle was going on the blitz. I have never seen a 27. I tested again on a different finger within seconds and that one came to 29. So I think I hit a pretty bad low. If how I was feeling was any indication...

Hope you "enjoy" your new meter. LOL. Who enjoys pricking themselves?

I am in the same boat as many of you in that I use many meters. I love the convenience of my Contour USB. It allows me to simply plug into my MacBook and download all of my readings. This is great for my on the go lifestyle. For my bike trips and run/hikes I use the Freestyle Lite for the back lit display and the test strip port light, great for night time outdoor testing.

Both have been very accurate.

--Dave B.
Type 2 - 2yrs

Insurance companies!! They are the ones who make the medical decisions that doctors and patients should be making! So, why is everyone so worried about the US getting any form of socialized medicine? The insurance companies will run that, too.

Okay, enough on insurance companies. I considered apologizing for the rant, then decided not to.

About the New Generation meter -- it could be that you got a defective one. Call their customer service department and let them know about your problems. Perhaps it wasn't properly calibrated before leaving the factory. (All meters need re-calibrating every so often, so even you dearly beloved ones needs to be checked every now and then.)

Venous blood -- like when they draw it at the lab -- usually has a different reading from capillary blood -- like what you're using when you poke your finger or other site on your body. I don't remember the exact percentage of difference, but I do know that they are very rarely the same.

The FDA has set a standard for meter performance -- they have to read within a 15 or 20% accuracy range. This sounds like a pretty big margin of error to me -- especially for folks using sliding scale insulins.

Strips can be very expensive, as you know, so if you can use that meter, it could save you lots of money. There was a brand called Reli-On that was available at larger pharmacies -- like Walmart -- that was supposed to be pretty good and had low-priced strips. I don't know if it's still available, but you might check.

I've been using a One-Touch for the last three or four years, and like it quite well. One of the things about it is that it requires only a minuscule drop of blood. You can use it for alternate sites for testing, too.

It's a good idea to use your fingers for testing any time you aren't feeling well. Other sites don't adjust to changes in your blood sugar as quickly as a finger one will. At least that was the scoop when the alternate-site testing first started a few years ago.

Good luck.

I have been using the Free Style Lite for three years. It takes the smallest amount of blood sample than any other meter and the strips react very fast to the blood sample to give a very fast reading. The strips accuracy varies from box to box of 50 by about 8%. For example, a reading of 108 from one box will get a reading of 100 or 116 from another box.The strips cost me 67 cents apiece. Overall I am quite satisfied with them!

have two free style lite monitors...i originally had just the free style...but then they came out with the lite one...which has a cool light come on that lights up the test strip when you want to see better when you put the blood onto it....i like it very much, but the regular free style had nice big digital numbers, the free style lite is hard for me to see the numbers...as they are way smaller...although i do get pretty accurate testing with it.