Monday, April 15, 2013

Mapped Out

When my friend Beth messaged me about having a few extra sensors and transmitters and wanted to know if I wanted to use some, I was instantly excited to give it a try. You see, I tried the CGM two times before but only for a weekend at a Slipstream camp, so it wasn't truly long enough to get an idea of what was going on.   On Sunday Beth hooked me up with a sensor and made me put it in myself even though as I was staring down at the needle, pressing it against my belly I was getting intimidated by the size of the needle.  
"I want you to do it yourself!" Beth laughed, as I tried to con her into putting it in for me.

Turned out that after all it didn't even hurt.  It was more of the idea of the needle shooting into my stomach full speed that I didn't like - it was much bigger and thicker than the one of my Mio.  Thankfully, Medtronic just put out another sensor that is much smaller and thinner! Looking forward to also trying that one out once my nurse is trained! 

At first I was being a big critic about the sensor, it seemed to be a little off at first, but now that I have been wearing it for about 40 hours, it has for sure proved to me that it is is pretty accurate. It is incredibly interesting to see what exactly my blood sugar is doing when I wouldn't normally be checking it, for example in the middle of the night.   I could see how it slowly drops as well as when my sister and I went for a walk I could see it also slowly declining.   Things that I sort of knew but didn't exactly ever see it mapped out like that.  

I think this will really help with me preventing lows since I was having trouble knowing exactly when to lower my pump, when to eat, when to treat etc.  So far it has been awesome and every time I look at the graph I am amazed that we have the technology to do these types of things! Makes me feel lucky to be living with diabetes at this time...to think what advancements will be next.

Kayla 


3 comments:

  1. I'd like to get a cgm, but my doctor says I don't need one. He still has problems believing the problems I have with my sugars going wacky due to menopause I'm at a time right now, where for about 2 weeks, they won't be over 60. Also, my husband won't let me get one because of the cost. His insurance isn't the best so we'd have to shoulder most of the cost of the cgm and they and the supplies are rather expensive. So I don't get one, even though I believe it'd be the best thing for me. I don't need it durning the day, but while I sleep since I can sleep until I get too low.

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  2. I'm excited that you got to try out a CGM! I just recently was able to try the Dexcom one and had a very similar experience. It was fascinating, especially at night, to see all the crazy things my BG did! It was just a trial, and now that I don't have it...it's weird! I keep looking for it and wondering how my BG is "trending" :) Here's my first blog post on wearing it...I wrote two or three more through the time I had the trial, check it out!
    https://pumpandsecondhand.wordpress.com/2013/04/04/53/

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