jmalasiuk
Member Since 2014
I've been using a One Touch Mini on Tonka the last few months, and I know from past experience that it is a good meter. Variance in results is usually within 1-2 mmol/L at most (18-36 mg), and the comparison that they've previously done for this particular meter against lab results has shown that it is acceptably close to the lab results, although the higher ones' blood sugars, the greater the variance (it usually reads a bit too low once you're over about 250 or so)
I just bought a Bravo test meter (or rather, received one with the purchase of 100 test strips), made by Endomedical, which I found on line and figured would be worth trying out, since the test strips are a little more than half the cost of the One Touch test strips. But when I did some comparisons, it was hugely variable, depending on the drop size. It is supposed to read from a very small drop (smaller than One Touch), but with that small drop, it reads about 10 mmol (180) lower than the One Touch. With a larger drop, the results still varied more widely than on the One Touch, but within a more acceptable level. The only thing is that the readings were higher than the One Touch by a significant amount (e.g. 25.1 mmol [450] on Bravo when a One Touch reading was for 19.2 [345]; meanwhile, the minimum acceptable drop size on Bravo provided a reading of 15.3 [275] for the same sample).
This is more than the acceptable 20% variance, but that could just be a matter of the meter being misleading in how small a sample size it can accept. I'm just wondering if anyone has experience with this meter and has found it to be reasonably accurate or not. I'd like to use it, since the cost is considerably less and I want to be able to test Tonka frequently right now, to get a better handle on his levels and patterns while I'm able to do so. But the consistent difference of about 25% between the two meters at the higher end of the blood sugar scale worries me, especially if the discrepency is similar at the lower end of the blood sugar scale.
I just bought a Bravo test meter (or rather, received one with the purchase of 100 test strips), made by Endomedical, which I found on line and figured would be worth trying out, since the test strips are a little more than half the cost of the One Touch test strips. But when I did some comparisons, it was hugely variable, depending on the drop size. It is supposed to read from a very small drop (smaller than One Touch), but with that small drop, it reads about 10 mmol (180) lower than the One Touch. With a larger drop, the results still varied more widely than on the One Touch, but within a more acceptable level. The only thing is that the readings were higher than the One Touch by a significant amount (e.g. 25.1 mmol [450] on Bravo when a One Touch reading was for 19.2 [345]; meanwhile, the minimum acceptable drop size on Bravo provided a reading of 15.3 [275] for the same sample).
This is more than the acceptable 20% variance, but that could just be a matter of the meter being misleading in how small a sample size it can accept. I'm just wondering if anyone has experience with this meter and has found it to be reasonably accurate or not. I'd like to use it, since the cost is considerably less and I want to be able to test Tonka frequently right now, to get a better handle on his levels and patterns while I'm able to do so. But the consistent difference of about 25% between the two meters at the higher end of the blood sugar scale worries me, especially if the discrepency is similar at the lower end of the blood sugar scale.
