There were lots of examples floating around in my mind for today's photo. In fact, just last night, there were two great examples that I didn't take a picture of.....of course!
So, in mulling over whether or not to 'make up' a photo by inserting the numbers I wanted, I remembered this little frustrating episode....
Ubergeek went in to test Bean one night shortly after midnight.
He tested her once and got 233. Well, the CGM said something not even close to that, so he decided to test again just to make sure. Something we do, especially at night when the stakes seem to be much higher.
Now, her BG was supposedly 141. That was a bit closer to the CGM's reading, but way different than the first strip's results.
So he tests Bean for the third time...and by this point Bean is not very happy with Daddy!
Beep.....beep, beep goes the PDM and 90 shows up. What the fructose?!?!
Frustrated with the 143 point difference in the readings, he comes back into our bedroom and asks me to go test her.
My first reading is 128. Well, that's pretty close to the 141, and within the 20% margin of error that the strip manufacturers allow; just barely.
My second reading is 189. Um.....yeah. Not sure what to think.
At this point, according to five different test strips, with five different samples of blood, Bean could be anywhere in between 90 and 233. What in the world are we supposed to do with a range like that?!?!
Well, we did nothing. Didn't correct based on the 233. Didn't treat a possible low based on the 90.
We just sat tight and waited.
And, as you can see, within the next hour and a half, Bean crashed to a lovely 39! Thankfully it was an 'easy low' that came up quickly and stayed up for the rest of the night and landed at a lovely 112 for breakfast.
So, maybe the 90 was right?
BUT, if I had trusted the 233 and corrected her?!?!? I hate to even think how long it would have taken to get her back up from who knows how low she would have gone, plus having insulin still on board. YIKES!
This DIAFAIL is brought to you by stupid strips. We NEED better accuracy. Yeah, I know, most of them are accurate. BUT, this night, I had no idea which one was accurate, or even 'close enough' to trust.
And that folks is not OK.