hopeless control

[Adrienne]

Hi

If you look on the other pumping thread I have just written on, I have explained to Tom what should be happening when starting a Medtronic and transmitters and sensors. You do get some. It is unusual that a PCT will allow full funding from the off for sensors if you want them but if has happened and if this is the case then fantastic.

As to the clinical bit and your pumping hospital not liking them, that is rubbish, they obviously haven't tried them enough and they clearly don't have kids themselves with diabetes. What they don't understand is that if you have a child with diabetes then it is obsessive, we would all probably agree with that. We strive to get the best results for our child and to do that you have to be thinking about it and food and exercise and hours of sleep etc etc which is obsessive. However having the sensor in place it helps you to see what is happening. You can get trends from it, a couple of friends, the sensor is so accurate they do less testing, for Bev and myself it seems to be the trends that help us most, like what you saw last night.

If the 11 (finger reading) had been say 9 on the sensor, even though it is not in sync, you would still see the drop down in the early hours but just different numbers. It is these trends that are needed.

You can download all this data yourself via the Carelink website, which is brilliant and then use the info to to tweaks yourself. Ask Bev, she has been getting help from the email list due to her sensor overlay download (not from me I might add but someone who knows one hell of a lot more than me).

If I can do anything to help about sorting these sensors out, give me a shout.

 

[bev]

Patricia,
Well done on the hba1c result! Excellent!

Regarding sensors, at first i couldnt really understand the point of them, because as you say they are not in sync with the finger prick reading. BUT with lots of practice you can get them in sync with each other, its just a question of trying it.
At first we were out by about 5 or 6mmols and i thought they were rubbish, but now we can get them almost identical numbers. What you have to remember is that the sensor is 10 or 20 minutes behind the 'real time' reading - so it would be difficult for the numbers to tally for a lot of the time!

What we find the best thing about them is that they 'alert' you very quickly to going either up or down and by showing either one arrow or two you can tell how quickly this is happening. So even though i thought the sensor overlays were disappointing - I am reliably reassured by someone on the other list that in fact they are very good readings because we managed to avoid any hypos' and cut short the hypers that he would have had if we hadnt reacted so quickly. I think he had 1 hypo in a weeks readings (and this was only a 3.8 or something). Without the sensor i know he would have been on target to hypo on several occasions. Also the alarm has woken us at 3am on a few occasions as he was 3.9 with 2 arrows down - so managed to halt them - and then change the basals accordingly.

Our hospital have never used sensors and i think are a bit wary of what to think - so i have saved all the overlays and will send them before next clinic. They really do show trends and things that you wouldnt otherwise know about.
Another example is that Alex is rising between 9 and 11pm at night - we only check at 9pm and then 12midnight, so we hadnt realised this until it showed on the overlay. He is also rising between 10am and 12noon - we wouldnt have know this because his level at noon is nearly always within range!😱

I honestly feel that you will 'love' them once you get used to them. And if i can work them out and use carelink - then anyone can! lol.Bev

p.s. I only know lots of these things about sensors because of the lovely Adrienne and others on the list.