Am I the last one to know?

I am trying to start a social/support group in the city of Chicago for young adults with Type 1 diabetes and this week was the second of 2 meetings that I have had thus far. Only one person showed up to the coffee house where we have decided to meet. He was a 21 year old diabetic and proved it upon arriving, he took out his meter and checked his blood sugar and then showed my husband and I. "I know you were wondering." he said. And I WAS. I have to admit that it was comforting to see someone else take their blood sugar for a change. It turns out that even though this guy did not use an insulin pump nor a cgms, he had a plethora of information about both of them. I consider myself quite knowledgeable in pumping and cgms-ing, but we can all learn something new sometimes. Which brings me to the purpose of this post, he informed me that I didn't actually have to change my sensor site every 3 days, but instead I could remove sensor when it alarmed SENSOR DONE, re-charge, reconnect and go for another 3 days! How did I not know this? I had been complaining about the idiosyncrasies of the cgms and mine had recently had a lot of errors causing me to change it every 2 or 3 days and I was getting tired of it. It has been life changing advice and I am much happier now that I am not inserting a needle every other day. YAY for advice from other diabetics! I love you guys.

http://nottoohighnottoolow.blogspot.com/

Thanks Mark. I do have the Minimed CGM. But I think I must have a bad sensor, because after 2 days it alarms, SENSOR ERROR, METER BG, which I do. Then it alarms BAD SENSOR and quits. It has done this the last 5 times at 2 days. Any advice?

Hi Abbey. I have a mimed CGM too. When that happens I usually try restarting the sensor. If that doesn’t work, I toss it and start over. If that is happeing repeatedly like that, you might have a bad box of sensors, or maybe something else going on. Might be a good idea to call minimed and see what they can/will do for you on that. I usually get about 5 days out of a sensor, and then either get the type of errors you are seeing, or the sensor gets way off from reality. Another helpful tip I got from another user was that the sensor only uses the last 3 meter readings to callibrate. So if you have a wacky fingerstick reading (BG on the drastic upswing or downswing), it will take 3 more meter readings for that one to cycle out of the callibration algorithm. I suspect some of the trainers have been told to only tell you what’s in the manual, but some of these tips really are necessary to living with these gadgets.

Thanks for the advice! I think I will give minimed a call, I’m getting to be good friends with them lately. The gadgets are GREAT, yet not. I find it hard not to calibrate all of the time, which seems to throw it off as well. I appreciate the tips.