In the forum, here, we have referenced many times the major BG meter studies, and we constantly reference some of the highest rated ones (Contour, Freedom Lite) as the meters to get, as well as of the value meters that rate well (ReliOn Prime). So it seems that our collective experience agrees, for the most part, with these studies.
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my One Touch meters all read relatively higher than any of my other meters. i found the Verio to be the worst of them as well; it was the cause of many crashing lows (30s while the meter might have read 52, for example)
my new preference is the Contour Next One. and its small and easy to carry around and has an automatic backlight so you can always read it easily. also, as many before me have mentioned, if you havent given enough of a drop of blood, you dont have to toss the strip b/c it allows you a second chance to put more blood in. isnt that a money saver 
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Do you know how to turn off the beeping noise on the Contour Next?
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@Sam, I used the One Touch Verio a long time. When I took two or three consecutive fingersticks, they were often very close: I liked that.
But I didn’t know if it was accurate. When I moved to the Freedom, which I think is well rated, I found out that the OneTouch read a bit high compared to the Freedom, often 5-15 higher. It hardly ever read lower than the Freedom.
But the Freedom appears to be more dispersed. Last night, for instance, I took 3 fingersticks in two minutes because I was high and I had not calibrated within range. So I wanted a good value. I got 176, 161 and 153. That’s not a good spread, too wide. I hardly ever got this kind of spread with the Verio.
So, maybe some meters work better with some people than with others.
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Yes it definitely varies from one person to another…
I can say with absolute certainty that out of thousands of back to back tests with the verio, I have not once, not ever had 3 in this range come back this close to each other
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For me, many pairs were within 2-3, and many were within 5, and many were within 10. I hardly ever got anything wider than 10.
Do you wash your hands before testing? I try to. When I need a precise BG fingerstick, I wash my hands with warm water, dry them, and shake my arm first to make sure I get plenty of nice, warm blood coming. I also try not to milk my finger.
I find that it is easy to get bad results from fingersticks if I am not careful, for instance, if I have sugar on my fingers from a previous low. Or from ribs and bbq sauce
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Yes I always wash my hands… it’s not a technique issue, the one touch strips just don’t work right for me, others work much better
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I am with @sam on the Verio strips. I find they do not work for me. They tend to produce random numbers for me especially over 180.
I have used the Contour and Freestyle strips and found them to be close in magnitude and repeatable between tests.
I currently use the Contour Next One.
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I currently use the Contour Next meters. I have great accuracy with them. I can test twice in a row and get identical results (no variation at all). In fact, somewhere on this site I did test repeatedly about 20 times over several days, but I forget which thread I posted the results in.
I used the FreeStyle Lite meters for several years and had good results with them.
I used OneTouch for many years (though none of the current generation of meters - I was using the Ultra/UltraSmart/Ping meters), and they definitely read higher than other meters and seemed to have more variation. I also didn’t like that neither one allowed you to add extra blood (both the Contour and FreeSyle meters let you do this).
In general, I think everything we do with diabetes is a bit of guesswork. Meters are not perfectly accurate, but I’ve also read carbohydrate counts on packaged foods are allowed to vary by up to 20%, and I read a recent study showing that insulin shipped in the US has a concentration varying from U-13 to U-94 by the time it reaches the customer. Add in all the other factors, and a lot of what we do is guesswork even when it seems to be based on reliable data.
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It’s interesting that people say the One Touch meters run higher than other meters—I use them (currently the ultramini), and I’m also one of the few people I know whose 90-day Dexcom averages tend to match up perfectly with my A1cs (vs my A1c being higher). Makes me wonder whether that elevation might make One Touch meters ideal for Dexcom calibration, counteracting the Dexcom’s tendency to underestimate blood sugars…
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This is funny: I thought exactly the same thing when we moved to the Freedom meters. I think you are right.
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@cardamom The Lifescan meter discrepancy that people are discussing might be due to the difference between Verio and Blue strips. I had way better accuracy with the Blue than the Verio ever had.
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I had never thought about elevation but I suppose it could be a factor… have always just vaguely considered it in terms of blood chemistry. EG someone with twice as much sodium in their blood would certainly create a different electrochemical reaction than someone with half… and there are many different enzymes used to create those reactions from one brand of strips to the next—- we all have unique blood chemistry— I’d assume that the unique characteristics of it would make some strips work well for some of us and others work poorly…
Again last night back to back tested with one touch verio, same drop of blood, clean hands— 168, 127
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By elevation, do you mean that the One Touch may be more accurate at different heights above sea level? Or do you mean that because One Touch meters run a little higher, they offset cgms running a little lower? I wasn’t aware that this was a problem with cgms.
I meant elevated readings, not elevation like mountains, heh, though who knows what kind of factor that could be.
Dex’s calibration scheme seems to skew a bit low for many folks, possibly to minimize risk? Certainly I seem to be an outlier in having A1c estimates (or being able to generate them now that the Dex doesn’t produce them) from my Dex that are accurate instead of lower than the lab values.
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Interesting… there definitely seems to be a tipping point at about 120 in which the verio becomes a random number generator… below that it’s spot on and repeatable, above that and I see numbers all over the place and not even remotely connected to Dexcom values while other meters still track it and make sense with a reasonable increase in the spread of results…
I’ve never really bought into the “average” bg precisely correlating to an A1C value—- that seems like an extreme oversimplification to me that has been given to much clout historically
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I agree with you. I think the oversimplification is done to help patients understand what they can do to lower their A1c, not how it actually works. In this case, the oversimplification is a good one, in that patients understand what they should do to improve, but it sucks in that it takes a complex topic and simplifies it to the point of not being able to understand the nuances.
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My A1c is lower than you would expected based on the data given in my cgm reports. So basically I have the opposite problem of what you described. I’ve sometimes wondered if my Verio is showing higher readings and I am actually lower all the time. I suppose more people would have this problem though if that were true. I’ve confirmed my sugar level a few times with the contour next.
Also, my Dex tends to follow my blood sugar readings pretty well unless I’m increasing or decreasing, in which case it’s about 10 minutes behind. Also, it’s not as accurate when I reach the end of a sensor’s life.
For me it was the opposite - One Touch Verio ran lower than the Countour or Freestyle meters. I think when we are talking OneTouch in this thread we are talking Verio.
I used many meters that were called “Onetouch” and the Verio was the first I really had problems with readings.
Ah ok then never mind my comments—I’ve never used the Verio and I haven’t compared my other One Touch meters to other meters. I don’t think my One Touch Ultra Mini is super reliable at extremes (two immediate tests may vary a bit), but closer to normal ranges it seems to perform quite well, and I haven’t been concerned enough by any of it to switch.