Alexandra - Freestyle Libre accuracy?

[alexandra]

Just wondering if anybody has had any problems with the freestyle libre? I'm 22 and I've been diabetic for six years now. I'm currently 17 weeks and 3 days pregnant and at my last anti natal appointment they gave me the freestyle libre monitor to try as my sugars were either high or low. When my sugars have been low, they have been around 3.4 but after I had the sensor applied to my arm my sugars are dropping in the 2.2 region. My blood sugars have been improving but I am getting readings of 2.5 and then when my meter shows LO I do my standard finger check. My reading shows up 2.9 but I don't understand how it'll show that my sugars are higher than one reading but still appear LO. I didn't have a lot of help when I was going through my past 4 years but after moving house I was at a new doctors who told me that my diabetes wasn't under control and that things I got told by medical professionals at my old practice were actually wrong and not right as I'd been led to believe. My blood sugar range was 12.0 - 14.0 which is high for any doctor, but my sugars plummet low when I reach about 10.0 and my body reacts as if I'm actually 3.0. I am finding the libre very useful but I'm worried that some readings are inaccurate and I could be correcting a HI reading with too much insulin or correcting LO reading with too much carbohydrate or dextrose.

 

[Northerner]

Just wondering if anybody has had any problems with the freestyle libre? I'm 22 and I've been diabetic for six years now. I'm currently 17 weeks and 3 days pregnant and at my last anti natal appointment they gave me the freestyle libre monitor to try as my sugars were either high or low. When my sugars have been low, they have been around 3.4 but after I had the sensor applied to my arm my sugars are dropping in the 2.2 region. My blood sugars have been improving but I am getting readings of 2.5 and then when my meter shows LO I do my standard finger check. My reading shows up 2.9 but I don't understand how it'll show that my sugars are higher than one reading but still appear LO. I didn't have a lot of help when I was going through my past 4 years but after moving house I was at a new doctors who told me that my diabetes wasn't under control and that things I got told by medical professionals at my old practice were actually wrong and not right as I'd been led to believe. My blood sugar range was 12.0 - 14.0 which is high for any doctor, but my sugars plummet low when I reach about 10.0 and my body reacts as if I'm actually 3.0. I am finding the libre very useful but I'm worried that some readings are inaccurate and I could be correcting a HI reading with too much insulin or correcting LO reading with too much carbohydrate or dextrose.

Hi @alexandra, welcome to the forum 🙂 I've moved your post to its own thread so it doesn't get missed.

The Libre is usually fairly accurate but sometimes you can get one that doesn't work very well, or that constantly reads lower than you blood sugar levels actually are. As such, you should never inject/correct based on the Libre reading, always double check with a fingerprick and go from that. If the Libre is way off then report it to Abbott who should replace it 🙂

If your levels were usually in the 12-14 range before then you would get hypos symptoms without actually being hypo, because your brain just goes off the fact that you are much lower than usual, so sends out panic signals. As you get used to lower levels then you should only start getting hypos symptoms when you are genuinely low.

 

[khskel]

Many people find that the Libre is most useful for identifying trends in your BS levels. It makes testing your basal levels relatively easy.
I don't use it full time but if I think my dosage/timings may need adjusting I'll pop one on. The graphs will help you identify where you're going adrift.

NB Abbott are really good at replacing didgd sensors.