Curse of the One Touch Verio IQ

I first received a One Touch Verio IQ glucose meter when I started on my insulin pump in May 2016. As most diabetes sales reps do, I received a rave review about how it was one of the most accurate blood glucose meters on the market.

I was using the FreeStyle Insulinx at the time, which I absolutely loved for it’s ‘Lite’ test strips that only required a tiny sample of blood and weren’t wrapped in that annoying foil. Although I had no intention of switching from the Insulinx, I decided to place this meter in my travel case and use it as my spare.

To give it credit, the Verio is actually quite an attractive meter. It has a colour screen and a backlight that automatically comes on when inserting a test strip. The meter is a refreshing white colour, rather than the dull greys and blacks that I’m accustomed to. By far, my favourite thing about this meter was the plastic shell that holds the meter, test strips and lancing device, which makes it super easy to carry.

Unlike any other meter I’ve used, its also rechargeable. This is good in the sense that you don’t need to keep on buying batteries (which are expensive, mind you!), but also not so good in the sense that you need to remember to keep your meter charged up before leaving the house. As a travel meter, the battery life held up well and would typically last me a month.

Testing with this meter was tricky to get my head around. Unlike FreeStyle and AccuChek meters, the test strip port was situated at the top of the meter. Additionally, blood had to be placed on the side of the strip, rather than at the bottom.

My pet hate was getting strip fill errors if I didn’t get sufficient blood on the strip in one go. I had a lot of these in the beginning as I was getting used to placing blood on the side of the strip. This was extremely wasteful compared to FreeStyle meters, which would give me ample time to apply additional blood.

I also didn’t like the fact that the capped test strip vials only stored 25 strips rather than 50, and that boxes came with 50 strips instead of the usual 100. This was an unnecessary waste of packaging materials, and meant that I needed to buy double the number of boxes to get the same amount of test strips. Although the price was comparable to other brands, Pharmacies didn’t necessarily stock more boxes of Verio strips on their shelves.

However, the biggest dealbreaker for me was the accuracy of this meter. I have consistently found that the Verio reads 0.5 to 1mmol higher than each of my other blood glucose meters.

Of course when I raised this issue with Aussie distributor AMSL diabetes at the ADS-ADEA conference last year, I was basically told that it was the other meters that were wrong. The accuracy of this meter fell within the acceptable Mean Average Relative Distance (MARD) from laboratory glucose readings. It had also been recommended for calibrating readings with Dexcom, which is the golden child of Continuous Glucose Monitoring.

I’ve done a little experiment with some of my leftover test strips, comparing the Verio with my FreeStyle Insulinx, Accu Chek Guide and FreeStyle Libre. I washed and dried my hands prior to each test, as I’m well aware that any moisture or dirt on my hands can impact glucose readings.

To be fair, all meter readings are only accurate to the nearest 1mmol of a laboratory result. Two simultaneous blood glucose readings will likely produce different results. So how do I know which of these readings I can trust?

I’ve found myself feeling hypo on several occasions, only to test with the Verio and receive a reading in the 4s. Patterns as exhibited above are a regular occurrence.

I’m exercising my own judgement here, in saying that I simply cannot trust this meter.