What a headache, indeed! I feared a busted meter last night after a frozen yogurt excursion... alas, it was not. 310 mg/dL and headed... somewhere. What a mighty bolus underestimate for sure!
-Good luck with the new meter!

That is so frustrating Kerri. But it's good to see that your doc hooked up with a new meter pretty quick.

You gotta give us a review on the Ulttra 2. I need it to complete the One Touch Family Museum I am creating (or seem to be).

I have two UltraSmarts. That's the one you wanted to throw against the wall right? uh-oh :(

I had my 3 month check-up with the endo and picked up the UltraMini (for my purse). I seem to be making the same museum as George :)

Ugghhh...I completely understand. I had a similar experience this weekend. I just went on the pump (yeah!) and have been testing ALL THE TIME. So, instead of wasting my new fancy strips I used my old meter and what did I ring in at??? 224...new meter, 103. Next test: old meter, 252, new meter: 178. So I ended up using more new strips and getting pissed off. No wonder I had been going low so much with my old meter. I'm pretty sure I'm going to throw it out the window and hope a garbage truck runs it over.

I totally feel for you Kerri. Since I got my pump I have been all over my BG like never before. When I get those high spikes thankfully not very often I often wonder if the meter is working correctly. Especially if you check it a couple of different times and get totally different numbers. Your not alone!!! Hang in there. Dave

Sorry about your frustration, Kerri! Incidentally, when you get a Rx for a new meter and go pick it up at the pharmacy, do you pay a co-pay, or full price, or what? Better luck tomorrow!

Hee hee - the Lifestyle Library. :)

Sara - Yes, it was the UltraSmart. Now it is the UltraFrustrating and the UltraBackUP.

Sarah - I only had to pay my $20 copay for the meter. Then I was off and running!

Yeah,that sucks. Even an O'le Faithful(meter that is accurate 99% of the time) is subject to that kind of whackyness.

Sometimes I think urine testing would be more accurate, in such situations..

At least you got a new meter out of it.

Very scary to think about what might have happened if you didn't double check the result!

You would have been "a mushy puddle of hypoglycemia on my office floor".

yikes! i get frustrated when i go to the doctor and their meter always gives a higher reading than mine. so not fair. not to sound like a diabetic idiot, but what does one do when one calibrates the meter?

I have several meters all of which I received for free from coupons or pharmacies that just were giving away free ones. Saves a bunch 'o money. And it is good to have more than one meter for those wacky testing days.

This is what had worried me - One Touch a while ago sent out a warning that if the blood sucky area is not perfectly centered in the strip, it can effect results. The big thing is that while I see less and less of the ones where it's three quarters to the left or right... I still haven't seen any perfectly centered strips...
Just a thought, make sure the strips are centered.
Also, there are sooooo many brands of machines out there - if you are not getting what you need out of the meter, stick it to the brand and try something else.
At the same time, I realize that One Touch is an "old reliable" and I always have one around for use simply because they were the first machine I had 17 years ago when I was first diagnosed.

Gosh this story sounds familiar...

Meters & their general lack of reliability have been peeing me off lately too. I really think we need some better way of testing. The BG meter is an EXCELLENT invention and I wouldn't be without it, but we're making important decisions based on readings that are sometimes SO wacky it's unbelievable.
There's some human error stuff that we can work on, of course: not using old strips, washing our hands, use enough blood, keep the meter within temperature range etc, but there's no way we're to blame for all of it. Hurumph! Give me perfection, please, I'd like to have a normal life dammit!

My story about the One Touch Ultra II (which I've wanted to chuck out the window a few times):

I had a spell of really debilitating anxiety earlier this year. This was partially due to what I thought were wildly erratic blood sugars (e.g. 200 to 36 in TWENTY MINUTES, even though I knew that couldn't be right at the time -- anxiety makes it hard to take a step back and think rationally).

Turns out when I checked my blood sugar outside, I would get a result up to a hundred points LOWER than inside. Still can't figure out what the heck was wrong with the thing.

Now my blood sugars have been running generally very high (for the past few weeks) and I suspect the BG meter isn't helping things. My doctor told me that it has problems reading in the "very high" and in the "very low" range. Not the best meter for a diabetic who usually runs a little high?

Anyway, I might go back to my (now-ancient) Ascensia (nee DEX) 35-second processing meter that requires about half a gallon of blood (compared to the Ultra 2). At least it was consistent and accurate!!

Story of my life. My BD Meter is +-50mg/dl most days, and as much as +-100 other days. I have tried literally 20 different brands, and I can't get a consistant number with any of them. The only thing I can be sure of is when I'm low.

The whole meter thing is beginning to annoy me too. Whilst anything is better than nothing, the damn things do tend to sulk somewhat. I wonder how many people have ended up in the poo because their meter has given them a false reading? Like you, I hate being high but I don't want to end up in a heap either!

Everyone in New Zealand with an Advantage meter is now getting a nice new Performa (Aviva in the US) completely free. Which is very nice, I've never thought of Roche as being altruistic but you live and learn. Now the old advantage gave a whole blood reading, the Perfomra gives a plasma reading. Not a problem, provided you know it's going to be different. It does tell you about it, in small print, somewhere in the instructions but, hey, who reads all the instructions. Would have been nice if somewhere or other, in nice bold letters, you got told that your readings would be about 11% higher than you were used to. I would take an old reading of 3.9 (70) to be a "have a nibble but no hassle" sort of number. On the new meter 3.9 is a "I must eat and not drive" number. That could be damn dangerous.

Neither my GP's practice nurse my pharmacist knew of the change either. Looks like the left hand ain't been talking to the right hand again. :)

Of course, one day well have a miniature continuous monitor combined with a pump that provides just enough insulin to keep our BGs perfect 24/7. The whole thing being about the size of an M&M, including enough insulin and battery power to last for five years and is completely infallible. These devices will be delivered by bright blue pigs who can fly, water ski and dance the tango.

I had the same thing happen. 20% error margin is just too wide at high numbers,which is truly frightening because that's when insulin is REALLY involved.

A while back I had a site go really, REALLY bad. I tested and I was 523. Took a boat load of insulin.
1 hour later:
532
437 a few seconds later
402 a few seconds after that.

130 point difference in less then a minute. I also dropped to 146 within 2 hours and 46 within 2.5 hours so the original 500+ was obviously off.

20% 'error' margin should NOT be acceptable.

I had to get a new Precision Ultra almost immediately after being given the first one. I tested three times in under 10 minutes and widely different readings. The best thing I ever did was call and demand a new one, but also one of the most terrifying. Who was I, an upstart, diagnosed under 3 months before? How was I supposed to know? Those were the thoughts that almost made me not do something. Those are some of the most dangerous and insidous thoughts one can have.

Reading all these comments about BG meters is both heartening (because others understand) and discouraging (because, seriously, wtf, it's not like this is our lives or anything). Good luck with the new one.

Good luck on the new meter! I got too frustrated with OneTouch (after the UltraSmart), and as soon as the CozMonitor came out, I went for it. I already had a Cozmo, of course. I love it!

Here's to working meters!

Well, I'm late to this post but not to the situation. There is nothing more frustrating to me than feeling your tools are not up to snuff. Believe me, I have wanted to launch things against walls at times as well.

You have strips aplenty. Keep double-checking while you ponder whether or not a meter brand change is on your horizon.

Best,
J.B.

I have tried a few different meter brands over the past 14 years, but I always end up liking the One Touch family the best. (They obviously aren't infallible...) When I upgraded my pump a few months ago to the Minimed Paradigm, I was excited that the BD meter communicated with the pump, but when I actually tried it, it read about 50 points higher than my UltraSmart, so I kept using the UltraSmart, even though I have to manually punch in my BG to my pump. I really hope my UltraSmart doesn't go nuts on me!

Howdy,

It seems the OneTouch meters overall are more prominent among the seasoned diabetics, I guess since they were the among the first of the new-style meters.

I'd recommend the freestyle flash, though.. it uses considerably less blood than the onetouch meters and is very small and handy.