Hi @ SophieP, it's probably fair to say you have had an enlightened and helpful experience with a GP (or a Nurse from the Surgery) providing you with a Glucose meter and strips. This makes total sense to me, as someone who has no medical qualifications, such that for a Health Care Professional (HCP) to further investigate symptoms by providing home testing kit that could better inform the diagnosis - makes complete sense. At risk of sounding a bit churlish about this enlightened help to you and themselves, I think they would have done even better to provide you with a Continuous Glucose Meter (CGM) such as Libre 2 for a fortnight (one sensor) and used the data from that to see what your BG was doing every 5 mins during those 14 days; that could (would) have been extremely cost effective and I suspect
way, way more informative. Even back in 2017 that would have been possible, but probably too enlightened. Meanwhile .... we are where we are.
In general the Guidance Note from the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically severely plays down allowing GPs to provide this sort of home testing for T2 patients. Also the relatively new Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) [which replaced the former Cost Centre Groups (CCGs)] can impose quite tight financial accountability on the funds allocated to GPs for prescriptions. So there are many T2 patients who don't get home BG testing kit; many on this forum self-fund their own, no doubt because they have read here that there can be great merit in some structured self-testing. Personally I think this NICE Guidance is crazy, but it is how it is. I can understand there are cost implications and it all might generate wider involvement by patients leading to more questions and a further drain on GP Surgery time. It could even lead to someone in the NHS providing fuller guidance on the benefits and how to get that benefit, but ..... There is a current thread running about this aspect of BG testing and if you are interested you might find fuller discussion helpful.
The exceptions that NICE permits are diabetes patients on medications that could possibly cause a patient to go hypoglycaemic, since that is a potentially dangerous medical condition in itself. But otherwise hypoglycaemia is most unlikely for T2s not on such meds and so don't need to test. I can understand why
@Lucyr raised her question.
All that said, and hopefulluy now parked, perhaps your next step could be to politely challenge why either your GP or that prospective Consultant doesn't prescribe one or even 2 x 14 day CGMs such as Libre 2 from which you and they can properly see what is going on. Libre 2 would, I think, be very appropriate for your circumstances, since:
Each sensor is a standalone package for 14 days; after 14 days the expired sensor is binned and a fresh sensor doesn't necessarily have to be started immediately. The Dexcom One CGM pack locks one into a 90 day duration for best cost effectiveness. This is fine for someone like me who needs that BG data continuously 24/7/365. But potentially wasteful as a short term investigation tool.
The Libre 2 app allows a lot of extra data recording in its notes section, which Dex One can't do. So if you were wearing a Libre sensor and a high or low unusual experience occurred you could (even at a later time) jot down some useful information (attributed in the app to that particular date and time) such as what you were doing, symptoms experienced, recent foods or any other recent unusual thing that might help the detective work. That whole output from your CGM can be shared with whoever you authorise to access it.
In short although this wasn't necessarily what Freestyle intended - this use of their sensor in isolation could be near invaluable.
I hope you get some rapid further investigation and thus progress towards a diagnosis and remedy. Good luck.
