A picture is worth a thousand words. Below you see my bg histogram for the month before I got my CGM and for last month. I hope to awake curiosity in non-CGMers.
Love to have one of these, even if only for part-time use. Unfortunately ‘it’s all about the money’. Glad you’re seeing good results though!
The JDRF study that came out last fall has led to better insurance coverage. I am also using about 250 bg strips less per month. That offsets the cost somewhat.
thats fantastic!
I love my cgms (dexcom 7 PLUS); worth the 8 month fight with my insurance co
Its intersting, as a type 2 we dont even qualify for cgms. I managed to get my A1C down to a 6.5 on this go round and the only reason i was able to do that is that I am almost testing every hour to make a decision on what I need to eat and what do I need to eat before excercise. So I am burning through test strips at about a 50 count in about a week. So now I have to fork up the cash for additional strips for 2 weeks. I think this type of device will benifit a lot of people if the cost was not so high or insurance would kick in the cost
I had to fight to get the pump, but they rolled over for the CGMS. I love my Dexcom. I thought I’d use it occassionally, but now I feel naked without it. I use fewer strips also, but still don’t dose myself based on the CGMS readings. I still do the finger stick, but Dex tells me when i should be checking. It’s saved me quite a few lows that I didn’t feel coming on and was able to correct for before that LOW feeling and resultant overeating occurred. I love mine.
Will insurance cover cgms for Type 2s if they are on insulin? And is it true that all insurance companies deny Type 2s use of this device (presently many insurance companies deny Type 1s coverage). If you know your insurance company covers Type 1s (we often have to fight using grounds such as hypoglycemic unawareness and many documented lows), find out the grounds your insurance company requires for coverage. If you, as a Type 2, suffer the same type of instability as your Type 1 brethren, and are denied, not because you do not meet grounds for coverage, but simply on the basis of type of diabetes, you should be able to appeal. This is clear discrimination. After all, lows are nothing more than “insulin shock.” There are many Type 2s on insulin. I know this will be a long fight, and we did have to appeal twice for coverage (may have to again if Sis changes jobs and has different insurance), but fight you should. Type 2s should band together and fight this.
Helmut, you have fabulous results with cgms. I think you should write a “Tips” section on this. I believe you responded to one of my posts before and you did mention you utilize diet as well to control blood sugar. It would be great if you told us how your lifestyle changed and decisions you made as you looked at cgms data. You clearly wasted no time to respond to the information provided by cgms.
Jan, most people on this forum are pumpers or MDIers and I have yet to come across a fellow who is stuck in time like me and uses one shot of 70/30 to cover the entire day. The benefits that I see from my CGM can all be traced back to better timing.
- When should I inject?
When I get out of bed, before breakfast or somewhere in between? I found out that I was injecting too late. Injecting earlier brought the breakfast spike down. I had tried injecting earlier before but moved the injection closer to breakfast when I experienced severe lows a couple of times. Now I see that for 9 out of 10 days injecting when I get out of bed is almost too late. I many times have to defer breakfast until my bg comes down enough. What about the severe lows? I see them coming on my CGM and I drink half a glass of orange juice to hold me over until breakfast is ready.
- How much to eat before exercise and when to start exercising?
I had severe lows a couple of times. Thus I made sure that my bg was at least 180 before I started exercising. Most times I ended up way too high. Now I have the timing down to a science. I eat a bagel and wait until my bg starts going up. When my bg hits 100 I start exercising. The bagel perfectly matches my exercise activity and my bg typically stays between 100 and 120 during the entire exercise. Before I always felt like being between a rock and a hard place. No exercise: not healthy. Exercise: not healthy. Just for different reasons.
When I posted the initial Glucose Distribution I was still on shots. I am on the OmniPod for 2 months now. My BG SD went down from 30 to 22 and it shows in the Glucose Distribution.
this is cool. I would love to get one of those. But once again, I am not an insulin dependent type 2 but it would sure make working out a lot easier for me. I tend to go from 200 to 70 in about 20 minutes in a work out. It great to see this type of technology making someone’s life a lot easier.
DexCom mentioned that they will try to make inroads into the T2 market. For me the reduced usage of BG strips offsets the cost of the DexCom.