I went for over a week without a sensor for the first time since starting the Dexcom in late 2015.
It was sort of nice. But mostly I just missed it.
OMG. The lows. I thought my hypo awareness had become better since getting the Dexcom. But nope. Woke up this morning at 2.5 mmol/L feeling fine. Had to test twice before I believed it. And that’s just the latest of almost daily lows.
And the highs. Though I feel them better than lows, I guess, it’s not till I’m up to 17 mmol/L and higher. And, because of the lows I’ve been scar d to be too aggressive correcting the highs when they do occur.
I’ll be so happy when my new sensor is up and running in two hours.
Interesting perspective. I just ordered another box of sensors, and my brain was saying, “Oh God, here we go again.” Talk about double-edged sword. I find the awareness it gives me of where I am usually just frustrates me. If it’s too soon to correct, I helplessly watch it go up and up and get mad at myself for not figuring out the correct dose in the first place. (Yeah, I know, I could correct early and then keep an eye on it to head off the low before it hits, but then it’s like constant catch-up.) I swear, I have been MORE FRUSTRATED BY MY DIABETES in the past six months than in all my preceding 47 years of diabetes put together. If they came out with something that only alerted me when I was going low – no numbers, no trendlines, no high alerts, nothing – I would be very happy.
This is what we’re taught but…I go ahead and correct anyway and generally feel better and usually don’t trend low afterward. Yes, there’s a bit of risk but I just hate going high!
You can setup your receiver that way - no high alert, only a low alert, and no alerts on up or down trends. If it’s in your pocket, you won’t see any numbers, and it only beeps if it goes low.
I usually correct highs and lows early, too. Sometimes before they even cross my alert threshold. This is largely what makes my blood sugar so much more stable.
I’ve never had this happen before, but my sensor has yet to work. Last night it kept asking me to calibrate, and it’s been giving me readings that are way off and ???s ever since. I’m probably going to call and get a new sensor, but I’m leaving on a trip tomorrow so will have to decide whether to pull this one (hard decision when that’ll be $85 of your own money wasted).
@Jen, When you pull the old sensor off, look at the actual sensor wire carefully.
(Well first make sure it is all there and nothing left under the skin - normal safety check.)
But see if it looks different than typical. Hard crimp or covered in dried caked-on blood. Caked on blood would be a good reason why it was not providing good data. For us, that is quite infrequent but has happened a couple times.
I do try to avoid looking at it, except sometimes I’m curious. And I have to look at it when I calibrate, and when I fingerstick before a meal to make sure it’s fairly accurate, and that’s when the whole “What did I do wrong” cycle starts up, because I find it hard to just say, “I went high/low. Oh well, better luck next time,” and I want to learn from those “mistakes” anyway, to hopefully prevent them in the future. Also if I do a correction for a high in the night, then I keep checking to see if I’m going to come down or will I need to do a higher correction, etc., etc. It’s just this overload of information that at times feels very tiring. A certain degree of ignorance in the pre-CGM days was bliss.
Also when it has been a bloody sensor, my experience is that it will stabilize somewhat, but if you can get a replacement (or if like me, you have insurance coverage and end up with extras due to extending use well beyond a week), best off pulling and replacing, because it never really gets to fully normal/well-behaved. Even my current several-months-expired sensor, which is a little more unsteady in its trace than an unexpired or just expired one, but not at all bad (and def worth using), behaves better than a bloodied one.
It seems like there needs to be some psychological support and training with CGMs, at least for a good portion of folks, since it’s not just that people need technical support in order to know how to use it but also coaching in how to use the sudden onslaught of info effectively. It’s so easy for our minds to turn that information against ourselves! I could definitely see the utility of a behavior medicine protocol that utilizes some acceptance based techniques and cognitive skills integrated with practical diabetes management strategies in a brief training program for people new to CGMs or struggling with information overload. I’m guessing that there are more of those people out there than would seem evident on the forums, because probably the forums somewhat self-select for people with positive reactions toward the degree of information.
Something that I think is very helpful is to learn awareness beyond the CGM.
Try this - before you look at your CGM or test your BG, just take a guess.
Think about what your BG was last time, what you have eaten or what insulin you have taken since then, how active you have been, how you are feeling. Connect the dots and make a quick guess with everything you are aware of. Only after making a guess should you look at the CGM or test your BG.
As a long-timer, I bet you are pretty good at knowing your BG. By doing this, it makes the CGM less of a thing you are dependent on, and just more of a helpful tool.
We’ve been facing a lot of that thinking lately. And while EH feels like he spends all the time dealing with D stuff, I feel like we just didn’t know how bad it was for the first ten years. Without using the Dex all the time he’d go high or low and we’d eventually catch it, but not that agonizing thing you’re talking about.
Yes, the information overload is an issue. I like the idea of this, but it’s hard for me to conceptualize something that doesn’t come across as “just be okay with having high BG frequently.” I’m glad there are smart medical professionals (maybe like @cardamom) out there who could envision something! In addition to information overload, there is the problem of how much work making sense of the information is. Or, when you think you have made sense of it and then you find that what you came up with no longer works.
I ended up calling and getting a replacement. Still can’t even get it to warm up - goes to
??? before even asking to be calibrated. But I’d like to use this sensor if I can get it to come back to life. Every one of these things is valuable when it’s all self funded.
On the plus side, if your battery is the problem, Dex will replace the sensor for you since the battery didn’t warn you before you put in the sensor. That’s happened to me before, and they replaced it.
They replaced the sensor so that’s no problem. I sure hope it’s not the transmitter already. I got one less than a year ago (my last two lasted 13 months) and they cost $600 each. I’m currently on a leave from work, so not good timing financially. (Battery says OK, so hoping it lasts months yet!)
In addition to information overload, there is the problem of how much work making sense of the information is. Or, when you think you have made sense of it and then you find that what you came up with no longer works.