Hello @ Gardenpotter,
A comment about Libre 2 Alarms:
My personal view is that the Libre Alarms are misnamed and should be called Alerts (which Dexcom, a main CGM competitor calls theirs). We have Alarms for urgent scenarios such as fire in a building. But falling BG should not be even considered as an alarming state; it's a natural metabolic process and something we need to be alert to. No need to rush outside to an Assembly area because one's BG is falling; just calmly take note and have a little snack.
In the early days of wearing a CGM I think the low setting should be at the top end for Libre, which is 5.6 mmol/L. [My Dexcom G7 has the much more sensible upper threshold of 8.3; last night because of my schoolboy error, I had taken too much insulin earlier in the day and was concerned about going deeply hypo while I slept, so I set my low alert at 6.5. I was woken twice in the night, ate a couple of biscuits and went back to sleep. An otherwise great night, with minimal stress].
The point of having a CGM is not to tell someone that they are imminently going to become hypo, but to prevent them from getting hypo at all. So, until anyone new into their BG management feels totally comfortable about responding to falling BG and managing actual hypos they are far better advised to have an Alert setting that provides sufficient time to safely respond. This might mean a succession of Alerts while someone's BG is around the 5.5 mmol/L or below point and, more significantly that the user should have a mindset that says 6-9 mmol/L is totally fine.
A comment about the displayed numbers.
Strictly its not their actual BG being measured by the sensor, but interstitial fluid, which lags BG. Maybe that is too much distracting info for now, but I think is sufficently important to be aware that the number displayed on a screen is derived by some clever tech and inevitably has a margin of error within the number. So don't get too focussed on the specific number, to its last decimal point, rather just note the trend - falling, steady or rising!
It is easy to read on here about people happily in the low 5s or 4s, but I think that can be misleading to those that are new to Diabetes; now your husband is starting to use CGM he will come across the term Time in Range (TIR) and that range is 4-10. Achieving 70% TIR is considered very good - an official and Internationally endorsed criterion, recognising that people do get below 4 and above 10, from time to time - despite their best efforts.
The sensor is in situ and the phone app loaded. It keeps beeping at him because it loses signal even when it’s in his pocket. Any advice gratefully received
I no longer use Libre 2; so I'm out of date after some minor alterations and upgrades to Libre 2 and not well placed to offer thoughts on this, sorry.
Good luck to your husband with all of this. There is a lot to take on board all at once, but it does, absolutely definitely, get easier.
