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Continuous Glucose Monitor

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Casper

Casper

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
I am having one of these fitted on Wednesday to help in the assessment of applying for a pump - the best criteria for me is the loss of quality of life, and too many unknown hypos. Quite excited about it🙂 It'll be on from Wednesday morning till next Monday morning.

Has anyone any guidance/tips/tricks/information/personal experience of such an item, so that I can make the best use of my time with it?

Thanks in advance,
 
Well - if it's one where you can see the results on the little screen, it's informative to see how quickly/slowly your BG rises after a meal, bearing in mind what you ate - also if you do feel like - or know that - you are rising or dropping you can check the speed. You may only be 3.9 but if it's got there in 10 seconds flat from 10 you'll need to act fast LOL If you exercise, again the curve produced will be informative.

Also, what happens EXACTLY overnight?

Not sure with ones other than the one I had, but I needed to still test my BG AT LEAST 4 x daily anyway and enter the reading onto the CGM when I did. This is great - you can check the accuracy of your meter. Although the CGM doesn't measure blood (it measures interstitial fluid) the actual read-out figures will be adjusted to convert to equivalent BG figures.
 
Unfortunately I've never had the chance to use a CGM, but in your position I'd try to ignore it entirely - if you are trying to discover hidden hypos and keep spotting falling BGs on the CGM and correcting them before you fall below 4 it will probably not do your case for a pump any favours!
 
I have my own CGM and I'm very proactive with using it. However if I only had it for a few days to check my eligibility for a pump I would try to ignore that it is there i.e. don't act on the readings because they should be able to get a print out of what has happened when you take the CGM back. I hope that makes sense?
 
I wouldn't mind trying one of those sometimes to see what exactly is going on.
 
ypauly said:
I wouldn't mind trying one of those sometimes to see what exactly is going on.
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm interested to see how the glucose level behaves!

trophywench said:
Well - if it's one where you can see the results on the little screen, it's informative to see how quickly/slowly your BG rises after a meal, bearing in mind what you ate - also if you do feel like - or know that - you are rising or dropping you can check the speed. You may only be 3.9 but if it's got there in 10 seconds flat from 10 you'll need to act fast LOL If you exercise, again the curve produced will be informative.

Don't know yet what type of monitor or what it looks like, but have had a few fast dropping hypos, such as from 10 to 2 in less than an hour.

Also, what happens EXACTLY overnight?

I'm curious to find out!

Not sure with ones other than the one I had, but I needed to still test my BG AT LEAST 4 x daily anyway and enter the reading onto the CGM when I did. This is great - you can check the accuracy of your meter. Although the CGM doesn't measure blood (it measures interstitial fluid) the actual read-out figures will be adjusted to convert to equivalent BG figures.
Click to expand...

The dsn has said I will still need to use blood meter pretty much as normal.

AJLang said:
I have my own CGM and I'm very proactive with using it. However if I only had it for a few days to check my eligibility for a pump I would try to ignore that it is there i.e. don't act on the readings because they should be able to get a print out of what has happened when you take the CGM back. I hope that makes sense?
Click to expand...

Yes, dsn has said they will have a printout to analyse, then I'll get an appointment to go over it all.

everydayupsanddowns said:
Unfortunately I've never had the chance to use a CGM, but in your position I'd try to ignore it entirely - if you are trying to discover hidden hypos and keep spotting falling BGs on the CGM and correcting them before you fall below 4 it will probably not do your case for a pump any favours!
Click to expand...

Hmmmm......good point duly noted!
 
Well - with mine, you couldn't see what was going on, so you didn't do anything different. Then they downloaded it and it produced a graph.

Oh ! - you ought to keep a detailed BG, exercise, insulin dose, food and activity diary! - then when they say, eg - What had you had to eat there, Casper, where it shot up to 109? - you'll be able to say for a fact what you had, which could either explain it or not! :D
 
Hi Casper,
The log's a good idea, I would try to include - start of meal, end of meal (to understand how long it took you to eat "x" number of carbs), type of carbs to track whether fast, slow, etc.

Also, if you have cgm with readout - it will be helpful for you to have an idea of your active insulin (how much bolus insulin is still burning off.....depending on person 4-5 hours for rapid insulins). Pumps track this...and maybe some meters.....think mine's set at 4 hrs. No complicated math req'd, just (units of insulin) / (burn time) and that's how much you subtract per hour from time of bolus.
 
schmeezle said:
Hi Casper,
The log's a good idea, I would try to include - start of meal, end of meal (to understand how long it took you to eat "x" number of carbs), type of carbs to track whether fast, slow, etc.

Also, if you have cgm with readout - it will be helpful for you to have an idea of your active insulin (how much bolus insulin is still burning off.....depending on person 4-5 hours for rapid insulins). Pumps track this...and maybe some meters.....think mine's set at 4 hrs. No complicated math req'd, just (units of insulin) / (burn time) and that's how much you subtract per hour from time of bolus.
Click to expand...

Eeeeek....... sounds complicated😱 Will be having a good chat with dsn in morning so I can get the best out of this experiment.
 
Had the monitor removed yesterday - it was an Abbott Navigator with screen, and could be used as a blood meter as well as showing what the interstitial fluid (!) was doing as well.

I thought it was fab🙂🙂

It produced lots of data/graphs/info on the screen that I could refer to, but as previously mentioned, ignored the continuous reading of glucose, and went on my normal blood tests/feelings/awareness as per normal. What was interesting, was the tracking overnight - no mattter what my bedtime level or basal dose, +/- any corrections, I dipped each night, sometimes as low as 2 without waking 😱 and woke in double figures with a stonking headache.

The dsn will now download the info, both she and consultant will look at, then I'll be called in to discuss further any tweaks/changes/proposals.

If anyone gets offered the use of a cgm - I would defo say go for it!
 
That sounds a bit scary that you are dropping so low whatever happens and not waking 😱 Hope the data points to a good solution! 🙂
 
Very interesting Casper. Hope this goes some way to support your pump application (tweakable basal pattern would be perfect to address that overnight dip).
 
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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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