? BG Meter gave me a totally wrong result, how frequently does this happen?

[Ron]

Good morning everyone!

I had a bit of a weird issue this morning. Got the furball all prepped for his morning shot, did my AMPS read and got a result of 50. Ratface has been riding high 200s/300s most of the week, so this was certainly unexpected (I did up his dose yesterday but only by 0.25u). I fed some HC food and waited 20 minutes before testing again. This time I got a result of 367. I'm pretty sure he's not going to jump that much in 20 minutes just from HC food, so I tested the other ear and got a 378. Feel like I can be fairly confident that the 1st AMPS read was a dud.

My question is how often do you get a misread from your meters? (I'm using a Bayer Contour Next human meter)

 

[Melanie and Smokey]

Meter error can happen with a bad strip or not enough/too much blood on the strip. Any time you get a number that is way out of line with what you normally see - retest right away to confirm that number.

Ratface probably enjoyed the HC food he didn't need

 

[Jill & Alex (GA)]

My question is how often do you get a misread from your meters? (I'm using a Bayer Contour Next human meter)

Every once in awhile. Less often as I became more experienced with the meter I was using.
Whenever you get a test result that seems out of whack... retest immediately.

 

[Amy&TrixieCat]

Yep...what the others said - when you get a number that seems off (in either direction - too high or too low), retest right away, before feeding and shooting! It doesn't happen often, but once in awhile something affects a test....too much blood, too little blood, bad strip.

 

[Millie and Cooper]

If you get a funky number, I've been told to wait 5 minutes to retest so that the meter doesn't throw you another bad number. Or get a back-up meter so you can test right away with that.

 

[Jill & Alex (GA)]

If you get a funky number, I've been told to wait 5 minutes to retest so that the meter doesn't throw you another bad number.

Sorry, I have to disagree with that advice. Waiting for 5 minutes to retest is unnecessary after getting a number that "seems" off/different/wonky/wacky. etc. Minutes can matter in a case of low numbers. Heck, seconds could make a difference. You want to verify a low number ASAP by retesting immediately so you can pull numbers up as quickly as possible if necessary.

I've always retested lows (LO, 20s, 30s) immediately and have never had a problem. Meters reset themselves once the strip has been pulled out.

 

[Millie and Cooper]

Sorry, I have to disagree with that advice. Waiting for 5 minutes to retest is unnecessary after getting a number that "seems" off/different/wonky/wacky. etc. Minutes can matter in a case of low numbers. Heck, seconds could make a difference. You want to verify a low number ASAP by retesting immediately so you can pull numbers up as quickly as possible if necessary.

I've always retested lows (LO, 20s, 30s) immediately and have never had a problem. Meters reset themselves once the strip has been pulled out.

Sorry. Thanks for the correction.

 

[Ron]

Thanks everyone!