Mike&Buddy said:
OK, my reservations of going to a cheaper meter have raised its head. I tested Bud that read 333, 20 seconds later I tested again and it read 354. Now, could he have spiked that much BG in 30 seconds into his blood stream?
We gave him 0.75 in hopes we are estimating this right that his BG has been rising since this morning.
OK, its over 300 now, this is a concern. :?
Hi Mike,
You're getting some expert advice on the liver glycogen release phenomenon, etc., so I won't comment. RE the meter, no worries, I would not even blink an eye at 354 vs 333. Would the bg have risen that much in 20 seconds? No, your common sense reaction is correct -- but it's not the bg, almost certainly, but a variation in the meter's performance, or more likely the test strip.
The Relion's a good meter. We (wife and yours truly) researched meters and being a bit technology oriented, I got into how these devices do their thing, how the test strip works, the chemical and electrical processes etc., and + / - 5% slosh factor, like Marjorie suggested, is very common. In fact ISO (the international standards org that sets parameters for these kinds of things) simply asks of a meter that it is within 20% of a professional lab reading of the same sample, 95% of the time. Of course with the Relion, you are using the same meter against itself, essentially the same moment in time, and you're in the same ambient temp, humidity, etc.. so I would guess this is strip, sample or handling. If your fingers touched the strip's "business end" or touched it differently on the first reading or the second, that can account for it. Or that same variance could come from a tiny bobble in the electric current the meter shoots to assess the glucose level, exactly because it is such a small current. Also undetectable variations in the materials at manufacturing -- not even different batches of strips, but from strip to strip -- can account for that amount of data fluctuation.
Ilkka
