Hypo now 3.5 mmol/l

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rayray119 said:
Yeah my comment was more about how I treated the metters to be aboustlly right and 100% When really there wa no difference between a 3.9 and 4.1
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Oh I should mettion This was when I didn't have a sensor attech to me
 
I recall (I don't seem to recall - I definitely do recall!) that the international consortium (the learned European body that Dr Cavan went to work for when he left BDEC) consensually agreed that 3.3 is the level at which the brain is definitely affected, ie cannot work properly whether the person with the 3.3 BG thinks they are still OK or not. Like it or not - they jollywell are not!

Hence - I actually think DAFNE saying '3.5' may be OK to mention 'this is when that happens' - but only in passing, rather than when you need to apply your brain on remembering to start treating the hypo.

I still hold to "4 is the floor!" meself.

NB well that's what I'll always say on this public forum, though in practice ......
 
Ha ha, me to. I alert at 5, and aim to never to get to 4.
But yes, 4 is the floor!
Of course, that doesn't mean it always works. But thats diabetes for you!
 
And 3.3 when converted into mg/dl is 59.4 which is equally not memorable. Like many others I have my low alert in the 5s, sometimes in the 6s (doable with Dex G7) so that threshold is an alert and not an alarm.

If I'm in a clean, calm place where a test meter and JBs are right beside me I have a chance of getting a JB or 2 to digest and reach my blood stream before a predicted close to hypo low can work in time. But in my real world I need much longer to intercept a falling BG and prevent the inconvenience of a hypo. I also aim to never get to 4 and this only shows in my graphs when the sensor is adrift from finger pricks.
 
Reading through this thread I'm sort of surprised that people have alerts set in the 5s, because that is the level I aim to be at all the time (wishful thinking!). A non-diabetic person's BG is normally in the 5s. I understand the international consensus is that anything under 3.9 is considered a "low" and that we should aim for less than 4% of time below that (with 70% TIR).
trophywench said:
I still hold to "4 is the floor!" meself.
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That's what I've always been told. I have my alarm set at 4.2 and have maintained 0% of the time lower than that for the last 90days. That said it doesn't mean that the alarm hasn't gone off, it just means that I've caught it in time. I thank goodness for those alarms. I use Dextro tabs because in my opinion they're a lot faster than JBs and you're not in the least tempted to over-consume them. Oh and I do still have hypo awareness.
 
I used to have mine set at 4.2 but raised it to 4.5 a few months ago. I can't say that I manage to avoid hypos as I currently have a very embarrassing 15% below target over the last 7 days almost entirely nocturnal hypos and I am finding that the higher threshold is a problem because I treat and go back to sleep and sometimes don't come back up above 4.5.... it would be far worse if I set it at 5. Also I tend to sleep really soundly in the high 3s - 5 range and good sleep is important to me, and my body wakes me up once I drop too low. At the moment there is only the tail end of my morning Levemir causing my lows or my own body so I don't worry so much about them although I have been raising my bedtime levels into double figures to try to prevent it happening,
Anyway, that is why setting it at 5 is too high for me and I may consider dropping it back down to 4.2, to see if that actually stops me spending so much time in the red during the night. It seems counter intuitive, but if my alarm is too high, the temptation is to ignore it because I have time, or my levels don't come back above it before I fall back off to sleep.
 
rebrascora said:
I used to have mine set at 4.2 but raised it to 4.5 a few months ago. I can't say that I manage to avoid hypos as I currently have a very embarrassing 15% below target over the last 7 days almost entirely nocturnal hypos and I am finding that the higher threshold is a problem because I treat and go back to sleep and sometimes don't come back up above 4.5.... it would be far worse if I set it at 5. Also I tend to sleep really soundly in the high 3s - 5 range and good sleep is important to me, and my body wakes me up once I drop too low. At the moment there is only the tail end of my morning Levemir causing my lows or my own body so I don't worry so much about them although I have been raising my bedtime levels into double figures to try to prevent it happening,
Anyway, that is why setting it at 5 is too high for me and I may consider dropping it back down to 4.2, to see if that actually stops me spending so much time in the red during the night. It seems counter intuitive, but if my alarm is too high, the temptation is to ignore it because I have time, or my levels don't come back above it before I fall back off to sleep.
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I have alerm set at 5.6 mostly in day. The idea is to change at night as I'm likely to have no bolus on board and don't care 5.6 and steady while asleep but i end up forgetting.
 
Its so interesting to see how different we all are re alarms...horses for courses innit
 
I set my low alarm at 5.5 when I’m going out for a walk or doing some heavy gardening, I can plummet after about 40 minutes on both those occasions, especially if I’m within two hours of eating a meal, so still have a dollop of active insulin working at its peak, the exercise makes me a whole lot more sensitive to the insulin on board, so I like to start around 7, and have time to stop, take gloves off, fish out jelly babies and treat, before I hit hypo land.
 
Tdm said:
Its so interesting to see how different we all are re alarms...horses for courses innit
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I have the value shown on my smartwatch, so the alarms are really to catch things when I happen not to glance at it often enough. (Including at night.) So I have the low alarm at 4.5 (so a bit low) but I'm trying to keep somewhat higher than that.
 
On Libre low alarm was set at 4.8 as it is now using Dexcom G6, like Dexcom as it can also alert you when bg levels are falling fast or rising fast.

Own preference is not to be in low 4s & definitely not 3s to preserve hypo awareness symptoms, can have periods where no lows are recorded in my libre/ dexcom data but when it does its always below 1%, tbh could never have done that before all this fancy tech.
 
Evening.I used to have my alarm set at 5.5 in order to forewarn me of impending lows however my alarm seemed to go off several times during the day including when I was not active. As my confidence grew in terms of dealing with and trending lows I reset it at 4.7 which I find works much better for me in terms of fewer alarms plus I find leaves me enough time to respond and in fact often just monitor it and only take remedial action if it goes lower but it sometimes bounces back on its own.
Like you Patti I have managed no time in the Red during the last 90 days so am comfortable with current alarm level but obviously on Libre you are only allowed one alarm.
I don’t bother with a higher alarm and again seem to manage fine.
ATB
 
My daytime low alert is 4, night time is 3.5. If I'm going low during the day I will feel it, if I'm concentrating and miss it then I'll get the alert before I'm too low. At night I expect to be reasonably stable and if I gently swing down into the high 3s I'd prefer to continue sleeping rather than be woken just because I've touched 4. I used to have the night time low alarm set to 3, but I don't sleep particularly well if I bump along at just above that level, so 3.5 is a happy medium.

I also have high delta-BG alarms set (>+/-0.55mmol/l/5min), which are probably the more useful thing as once you realise the rate has increased (either positive or negative) it's time to do something about it - eat or inject depending on the case in point. Even this could actually do with more finesse, as catching it a bit earlier (at the turning point) is more effective.

I should probably look at the driving-specific alarms that XDrip+ has and set one somewhat higher, but my car trips are almost invariably very short these days so it's not high priority. Something that would be useful is the ability to have higher alert thresholds while exercising (set automatically). Always good to have projects 🙂
 
SimonP said:
My daytime low alert is 4, night time is 3.5. If I'm going low during the day I will feel it, if I'm concentrating and miss it then I'll get the alert before I'm too low. At night I expect to be reasonably stable and if I gently swing down into the high 3s I'd prefer to continue sleeping rather than be woken just because I've touched 4. I used to have the night time low alarm set to 3, but I don't sleep particularly well if I bump along at just above that level, so 3.5 is a happy medium.

I also have high delta-BG alarms set (>+/-0.55mmol/l/5min), which are probably the more useful thing as once you realise the rate has increased (either positive or negative) it's time to do something about it - eat or inject depending on the case in point. Even this could actually do with more finesse, as catching it a bit earlier (at the turning point) is more effective.

I should probably look at the driving-specific alarms that XDrip+ has and set one somewhat higher, but my car trips are almost invariably very short these days so it's not high priority. Something that would be useful is the ability to have higher alert thresholds while exercising (set automatically). Always good to have projects 🙂
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I personally wouldn't like to be asleep in 3s for long period of time athough now it has happened before
 
rayray119 said:
I personally wouldn't like to be asleep in 3s for long period of time athough now it has happened before
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Likewise. My overnight BG trends down when I go to bed, then starts to trend up from early morning (DP), so if I do run a bit low in the middle it's only transient.

In the past when my BG was flat overnight I'd also have set a higher alarm to avoid running hypo all night as you don't sleep well. If I could get my act together I might also set a higher night time level post-exercise, more room for automation me-thinks (hammers and nails, I like automation).
 
rebrascora said:
Anyway, that is why setting it at 5 is too high for me and I may consider dropping it back down to 4.2, to see if that actually stops me spending so much time in the red during the night. It seems counter intuitive, but if my alarm is too high, the temptation is to ignore it because I have time, or my levels don't come back above it before I fall back off to sleep.
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this kinds of makes sense as from what i rememember from the libre you cant set the allerm to snozze and alert you again if it doesn't come back up after a certin amount of time like you can with dexcom products.
 
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rayray119 said:
this kinds of makes sense as from what i rememember from the libre you cant set the allerm to snozze and alert you again if it doesn't come back up after a certin amount of time like you can with dexcom products.
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Yes, dexcom just keeps on alerting, which is great for nighttime when you need it to be persistant...well, not great as such, but safer
 
Pattidevans said:
Reading through this thread I'm sort of surprised that people have alerts set in the 5s, because that is the level I aim to be at all the time (wishful thinking!). A non-diabetic person's BG is normally in the 5s. I understand the international consensus is that anything under 3.9 is considered a "low" and that we should aim for less than 4% of time below that (with 70% TIR).

That's what I've always been told. I have my alarm set at 4.2 and have maintained 0% of the time lower than that for the last 90days. That said it doesn't mean that the alarm hasn't gone off, it just means that I've caught it in time. I thank goodness for those alarms. I use Dextro tabs because in my opinion they're a lot faster than JBs and you're not in the least tempted to over-consume them. Oh and I do still have hypo awareness.
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Just out of interest ... in your opinion which of these works the fastest, and what is your preference?
1 dextrose tab (3 gCHO)
1 JB (5 gCHO)
1 skittle (3 gCHO)
50 ml Tropicana (4.7 gCHO)
 
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