Finger prick blood tests are unreliable a study suggests. Many of us will be using one of the various blood analysing services such as medichecks to check some of our blood values, especially testosterone checking. Testing our levels of testosterone can be a great indicator on the quality of the ugl we are using since we all know where our blood levels SHOULD be. The problem is, if you have taken your sample of blood by the finger prick method then the chance of an inaccurate result are extremely high.

There is even a Study online, performed by the American Journal of Clinical Pathology, giving details of the unreliability and inconsistency of the finger prick test.
When the finger prick test is done at home, more often than not, the individual will be squeezing and scraping the finger into the collection tube, but in so doing this, the red blood cells can burst, causing haemolysis, which will pretty much ruin the blood sample.
The fact that the blood collected will be capillary blood and not venous blood means it already contains higher levels of haemoglobin which in turn will lead onto inaccurate readings, or at best much less accurate than the venous collection method.

Did you know that almost 1 quarter of all blood sent to the lab for testing, taken via the finger prick method, will not even be good enough for testing. The research into the inconsistencies of the finger prick test showed that not only did the hemoglobin content vary but also platelet count and WBC all showed different results per droplet. We are not even talking about minor changes, we are talking about significant differences.
FINGER PRICK BLOOD TESTS ARE UNRELIABLE & should be a last resort, Venous samples should always be the first call.