I’m hoping that someone within DEXCOM. will read this.
I don’t stare at my phone all day long to see which way my glucose level is trending. If I had an let say an hourly tone durning the day to remind me to look at my phone. I feel could have better control, Far better then waiting for a High or Low ALARM. Running a near to flat trend is goal, not having to deal with the highs and lows of eating too much or not enough or too large a dose of insulin .
In my mind set it would be a simple thing for DEXCOM to make a software update to do this,
What if you just set a phone alarm with a specific tone, once each hour that you want the alert?
Or wear a watch that can vibrate to alert at certain bg levels. I use a fitbit watch for this, with xDrip. Or I can glance at watch anytime to see cgm data with trend.
More alarms?! You’d have to coax me off the ceiling!
I feel a little different about that. If there’s no action that I should take, I definitely don’t want an alert just because an hour has passed. So what I do instead is I set the high and low alerts at the first level where I might want to take insulin or carbs. In my case that’s 130 and 85 mg/dL. Those are my signals to take a look to see whether I want to do anything, and they notify me before things are getting out of hand. The unfortunate side-effect is that I get extra alerts after I’ve treated an excursion but before it has returned into tight range; the Dex alert system can’t suppress an out of range alert when the trend clearly shows I will be back in range in the near future.
Could you do any kind of vibrate on a iPhone?nancy50
Use xDrip unless you absolutely have to use the Dexcom app. It is almost infinitely customizable. Now that I’m on the Omnipod 5, my endo gets his information from Glooko, because the pump reports to it. I used Dexcom’s software when my doctor got reports from it; now I don’t use it at all.
I have a set reminder in my phone that also vibrates on my watch to check my readings. It’s a bit of a hassle if you want an hourly reminder but can be done
Thanks all. I’ve set regular alarms on my watch for every two hours durning the day. Work well for at least me.
You can set your Dex to alarm whenever your below 70 or above 150.
That’s gonna make alarms go off with great frequency.
One thing about Dexcom’s Share capability is that it allows 3rd party apps/widgets to feed off your data and present it in other locations. Apple Watch is kinda the obvious one, but you can get an app-capable Fitbit for a lot cheaper. I use a Versa2 Fitbit with a Clockface aptly called Glance that gives you your current number and graph alongside the time on the Home Screen. I also use a widget on my MacBook called Sugarmate that displays my current reading in the toolbar at the top of my screen. Sugarmate also has a version for IOS that I actually find better than the IOS Dexcom app itself, though I have both.
All these feed from the Share stream, and allow you to have a glance at your BG without interrupting whatever you’re doing. (My wife often asks “What time is it?” when I’ve just looked at my watch and my usual answer is “I have no idea, I was just checking my glucose.”)
I have a similar setup, but don’t use share.
I started with Ionic Fitbit, then to Versa when they discontinued Ionic.
I like that the Glance watchface shows time since last update of bg and delta to previous bg. Can tap on watchface to force update. Glance phone app also has custom settings for alarms, and stats like est A1C, avg BG, time in range.
Instead of share, I also have T:Connect app on phone and laptop, so get most stats, etc from downloading from pump.
One downside is that between Dexcom, Glance, and T:Connect I get all my alerts in triplicate. “Ok ok Ok Stop yelling at me!!!”
But xDrip allows you to select your own sound
All of this only works with internet or cell signal, unfortunately.
I’d love to see my glucose in my watch! (Garmin Fenix)
But only can when there’s a cell tower nearby.
To get my readings on my Fitbit versa I have to make sure that the FitBit app is synced. If not , I rather get no readings or one from 15 mins previous. I also found it is sometimes necessary to uninstall the app on the watch and reinstall. I usually on confer to my watch at night as it is easier the fumbling for the phone or Rex on the night stand.
Sometimes I need to go into the Glance settings via Fitbit app to get refresh. But most times I tap watch face if reading is in past, as shown by number of minutes (>5) since last reading.