Diabetic Recipes
stinky_harriet
I've been under 100 for half of the last ten blood sugar checks. My lows are mostly in the seventies and eighties now. Only three below 60 in the past week. My averages are steady at 133, with certain times of day at 110 while others average at 158.
I'm certainly not complaining about good numbers and amazing averages. It's taken years of blood, sweat, and tears to get my diabetes where I want it to be. I actually feel like jumping up and down for joy at the moment. I can see the future ahead of me, not tainted by complicated pregnancies or kidney disease.
Yet these numbers are so unbelievable to me. While waiting in traffic, I suddenly thought, "What if my meter is lying to me?" Technology often fails and I'm terrible about checking with the control solution. Plus I use the same meter for every test. It's quite possible that my meter is giving me great numbers that aren't even real.
I can imagine sitting in the doctor's office, patiently waiting to hear my latest A1c is back under seven, when he tells me "You're above 10." I can imagine the joy suddenly sinking and the panic striking me. It's possible, but is it probable?
After fifteen years of diabetes, I've lost the ability to rely on my symptoms. I checked my blood sugar today out of habit and saw 74 blink back at me, only to realize that I felt fine. Or sometimes I check my blood sugar fearing a high because of the telling thirst that I have, only to find that I'm completely in range. Symptoms are not something that I can rely on anymore.
I never expected to fear that my meter's results were too good to be true. I've always bounced from one extreme to the other. I've never been able to obtain perfect results so consistently. I never even imagined that I could, especially at nineteen years old and in the throes of stress.
I'm scared to check my meter with the control solution, for fear that I'll find my 98 is really 298. Granted, if my readings were that off, I'm sure I'd have a multitude of ketone symptoms. But if I can't rely on my machine, can I really rely on my body?
Lindsay, I'm in the same boat you are with the meter right now. It tests fine to the control solution, read *spot on* to the lab test just over two months ago. It's usually reading 10-20 mg/dl lower than *any* of the other meters I've been playing with recently (test results so far attached to my most recent TuDiabetes blog post)... OTOH, the meters I'm looking at are within 10% of the average of all the meters (same test/same site/same prick), which -- if the average is within 10% of lab -- would mean that they are all "accurate". I have one more method of testing the current "reading low" meter (I've already added in my never-used spare of that model; it comes up with similar readings to the active meter -- I also have an older meter which takes the same strips that I can use to test model versus strips, but it needs new batteries)... but at this moment, I'm practically jonesing for a lab test to compare against the meters...
I get a 10mg/dl variance between different fingers.
I think the same thing everytime I check my 4yr daughters bloodsugar and there is a good number! Especially when she is low and acting fine. Then I always double check the number!:)