Has anyone had any experience with A1C kits, such as the one below?
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Yes I’ve used these (this same exact kit appears under quite a few different brand name and generic) and the older walmart model which required you to soak a couple patches on a card with blood then mail them into a lab…
The a1cNow style like you show here are reasonably easy to use… the patch card ones (which I believe no longer exist) were quite difficult.
I wouldn’t have a ton of confidence of the precision accuracy of any of the above… I think generally they’d be most useful for people trying to figure out if they have an elevated A1C or if their A1C has significantly changed… not for someone analyzing the difference between a 5.8 and 6.0.
I wouldnt pay $40 for one. I believe they’re substantially cheaper at Walmart.
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I use them all the time. They have always been very close to the lab results, usually within 0.1 or closer.
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do you know if these can be purchased online via Amazon or something equivalent? There is no Walmart near us.
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Looks like there are lots of options on amazon… I’d search on the term A1CNOW or a1c now (the original Bayer brand name product) and then start digging around to find the best price… always go to the “customers who bought this item also bought” on the popular listings… sometimes the best deals are found there
Just looked at walmart.com and don’t see any screaming deals there either currently
I have free access to a lab grade Siemens vantage A1C machine any time I want, and I’ve only taken advantage once… I think most of us who are tightly controlled can pretty accurately estimate within a few tenths where our A1C is at… I did find these things helpful when first diagnosed and trying to get control of the situation though…
other than that I don’t see much benefit over the 2-4 times a year it’s getting checked at the docs office
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We’ve just been seeing discrepancies between his Dex and A1C every three months … and I know that data from the last month weights the average more heavily, and he often has a monster period of highs just about a month before our last appointment. So it would be nice to know in between those quarterly visits if the A1C changes between visits or if it’s something else, like our meter being off or Samson just running higher than his average BG would suggest.
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Might be worth trying… you’ll have to test at the same day at the same time he gets the real lab done too though to get a valid basis for comparison as well… I don’t put as much faith in the accuracy of the home test kits as @Eric does…
I’ve done two of these in a row and gotten different results… and then at a doctors apt a week later a different result. I don’t remember exactly but I think it was 5.5, 5.8 with these kits then 4.9 at docs office… that’s not a knock on them-- they still did their job of indicating that my a1c was in the well-controlled range… even if they’d matched exactly it wouldn’t have been much more meaningful
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The way I have validated them is to always do a home A1C test on the same day as a lab drawn test. And compare those numbers. Those numbers have always been extremely close.
If you wait days or weeks between lab and home, you are messing with the validity a bit.
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Do you know the chemistry/lab behind the A1C test? On a different post about test strips, there was a discussion that basically indicated that it was the test strip and the quantities of enzymes on the test strips that affect the accuracies of the BG readings; rather than the meter. For example, 3 meters use the same test strips. The inaccuracies would not be attributed to the meters, but rather to the test strips. Is there something analogous going on with the A1C test?
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I will need some time to look up the chemistry. But I found this info quickly. It is old (2010) and not very scientifically focused. But it does say that at least in 2010 there were issues with the home A1c tests.
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