diff --git a/lib/agent.js b/lib/agent.js
index 00ee26561e..ff75e37d99 100644
--- a/lib/agent.js
+++ b/lib/agent.js
@@ -684,3 +684,7 @@ Agent.prototype.registerMetric = function (name, labelsOrCallback, callback) {
 
   this._metrics.getOrCreateGauge(name, callback, labels)
 }
+
+Agent.prototype.registerMetricCounter = function (name, dimensions) {
+  return this._metrics.getOrCreateCounter(name, dimensions)
+}
diff --git a/lib/metrics/reporter.js b/lib/metrics/reporter.js
index 93e1dc68b0..cfec4ccd0d 100644
--- a/lib/metrics/reporter.js
+++ b/lib/metrics/reporter.js
@@ -48,7 +48,13 @@ class MetricsReporter extends Reporter {
         }
 
         if (metric.metricImpl.constructor.name === 'Counter') {
-          metric.metricImpl.reset()
+          // We need a way to avoid ignoring metrics that might go stale
+          // because we want values for each counter to appear in every document
+          // This is not a great check but there does not seem to be a way
+          // to provide meta data about a metric to enable to better check
+          if (!metric.name.startsWith('kibana')) {
+            metric.metricImpl.reset()
+          }
         }
       }
 
@@ -68,6 +74,11 @@ class MetricsReporter extends Reporter {
     // if a metric is a counting metric and that count is
     // zero, then the metric is considered stale
     if (metric.metricImpl && metric.metricImpl._count === 0) {
+      // We need a way to avoid ignoring metrics that might go stale
+      // because we want values for each counter to appear in every document
+      // This is not a great check but there does not seem to be a way
+      // to provide meta data about a metric to enable to better check
+      if (metric.name.startsWith('kibana')) return false
       return true
     }
     return false