First 24 hours with Dexcom

Oh, that 12 am was an overcorrected low - my meter said 2.6 (Dex said 3.3) so I ate 28 grams of carbs, which was too much obviously! But I was freaked out because it was the first time the Dexcom woke me out of a dead sleep for a low!

I abandoned my plans to replicate the day again and am instead fasting through breakfast. So far I have been pre-bolusing by 30-45 minutes for all my meals. Last night I tried not pre-bolusing and shot up to 13.3 for a 40g dinner. I did a 1/2 correction and that brought me down perfectly. So I am not sure what is going on with corrections and carbs - I seem to fall and rise different amounts each time I do them. Hopefully doing some fasting (the graph makes this a LOT more motivating than testing with a meter!) will help sort things out.

Using CGM certainly hasn't encouraged me to go Low Carb. In fact the opposite is true. Now I can see exactly how carbs affect my BG (in particular "difficult" low GI stuff like pasta or pizza, I have been able to work out bolus patterns that will deal with them effectively.

Hi GI stuff can be more of a problem since there's no effective way to increase the rate of insulin absorption. However, I will sometimes have a dessert as a treat if it comes at the end of the meal so I already have a fair amount of insulin on-board.

I like intermittent fasting for taming roller coaster blood glucose. As long as your basal is calibrated well, it calms everything down; sort of like a clean slate restart. Fasting can also help with making basal tweaks. With the Dex you can easily identify the exact time when the line inflects up or down. I just subtract two hours from that time and adjust that basal rate.

Hi Jen

Like you I just started using a Dexcom, exactly 2 weeks ago today. The 1st sensor I changed at 7 days as I wanted to follow the rules. This secong one I have just restarted so we'll see how it goes. So far no problems with it coming unattached.

I think I like it, it'3 caught 2 lows overnight & my lows are now in the 50s (mg/dl) not 40s or occasionally 30s as before. But not helping with high spikes yet. I'm about to download the data.

Yeah, I just downloaded my two days of data yesterday and it's a bit depressing! LOL. I think partly because Diasend has its range set to 4.0 - 7.0 so it's counting anything above 7.0 as high for me. I have my Dexcom set at 10.0 for highs. It's caught two overnight lows for me, too, so I am really liking it! My mom offered me some money to help purchase it and asked if I was planning to get it immediately after finishing this trail. I think I will order it a few days before I'm done the trial so that hopefully I can get it up and running with no interruptions! :)

Jen - You may adjust your target range in Diasend by clicking the "my profile" button near the upper right hand corner of the screen, then scroll down to "target value" or you may simply choose the radial button that will adjust the Diasend target value from your Dexcom CGM target value.

Fist basal test. Fasted through breakfast. My basal rates obviously need some work... I did a correction at 10pm so the overnight stuff might not be completely accurate, but I am surprised I dropped so much throughout the morning - especially because I told my endocrinologist that I RISE if I get up and don't eat (and I swear I have in the past!). I think I'll change my basal rate to cover the dawn phenomenon better and then try another fasting test soon. In the meantime, between not eating since 7pm and being low, I am starving so am off to eat lunch (ugh, spike here we come...).

The range on here is temporarily set to 4.5 - 7.0 (actually I think in the photo it's 6.7) or 70-120 because I would like to think I can aim to stay within that range when I am not eating... Again, not sure why the orientation is weird, but you can click on it for a bigger version that hopefully appears right-side-up!

Thanks! I'll definitely do that next time I do a download!

yeah, you have to try not to freak out with some of dex warnings.. I have done that too. I would always treat a low off finger sticks and symptoms if you're going to test first. Dex has had me in the 50's to 20's when I'm sleeping sometimes but I'm usually in the 70's when it says 50's and I wake up from the alarm which doesn't always wake me. The graph is great, I'm always checking mine to see what may be going on. I have variable results with corrections too etc. I decided not to bolus after starting to eat my dinner last night when my bg was lowish, which I've been doing a lot lately, and to do a 1:10 ratio instead of 1:12 because I had spiked the night before and I started dropping while I was eating- this time dex got it right. Some glucose tabs and lowering the basal got me out of it though fortunately.

Yes, I've had Dex say I'm under 55 but the finger stick says 70s or 80s, very hard not to treat for the Dex reading when it's beeping at you in the middle of the night!

Looking at the graph is sooooo different than just testing! It is SO different to see that I'm spending two hours after each meal above 10, compared to just testing with a meter and seeing one reading of 10 and correcting. I'm going to spend the next few weeks fasting and trying to get basal rates sorted out, and then will work on ratios. I am really hoping that if I work really hard, this will be what finally makes diabetes easier to control for me.

This is a comment referring to your overnight basal test. You can see the evidence of your 10 p.m. correction. The trace veer up, however, after that. That could mean that your 12 a.m. basal needs increasing.

The trend is definitely down, starting at 4 a.m. and runs until noon. That suggests a basal decrease starting around 2 a.m. until 10 a.m. This could mean that your 4 a.m. to noon basal rates have been doing some meal bolus work.

Now, the standard protocol is to wait until this happens three times so that it qualifies as a pattern but I've successfully adjusted basals based on less.

I like to keep my basal rates in 1/10th of a unit increments. Gary Scheiner recommended this and it works well for me. My basal rates run from 0.5 to 1.1 units/hour so a 1/10th adjustment is enough to be a significant change. I think using the smaller increments, like 0.025 units, can enable fine tuning once you're close but need just a nudge in one direction or another. Dealing with 1/10th increments just seems easier to analyze.

I'm feeling like all my settings need to change. My carb ratio is at 1:7 right now and I've still been having highs after most meals. So if my basal has been covering some of that...that's not good! I made a few adjustments of 0.05 and ma going to fast again tomorrow and see what happens. Heck, I might just fast most days until I get this morning basal rate set, and then work on the others, and then my ratios.

It might even be more complicated than that, because I'm pretty sure "hormones" versus "no hormones" are going to be different for me (differnet levels at least, if not entirely differnet rates), and I'm also pretty sure once I move weekdays and weekends will be different, since I'll be walking for about 30 minutes to/from work but may not exercise in the morning on weekends.

I should have noted that the correction was only 1/2 my usual one. So I wouldn't expect it would lower me all the way...

That smaller than usual correction could account for the 2-4 a.m. rise.

Can't help with the hormone stuff but I've always wondered if the monthly female hormone pattern is predictable and regular.

Mine is "regular" as in it happens every month, but not "predictable" as in I know exactly what day it will start or how high/low it will send me. But I do know when I'm around certain times, which I am at the moment (just went low again before dinner, and wouldn't be surprised if lows start kicking in all day tomorrow.. I'll be curious if things change a lot in a few days!). In addition to getting my pump settings sorted out, this is something else I'm hoping the Dexcom will help with! :)

I love my Dexcom. I really think that even if one doesn't get to use one all the time, every diabetic should have access to them (lenders) for a few weeks. It's a great tool.

I can get 10-14 days out of almost all of my sensors absolutely cannot imagine my life without my beloved dexcom! I HIGHLY recommend!!!!!!

Second sort-of basal test (which I think I'm going to stop early because I got my period...sorry if that's TMI!). The spike is from dinner at about 7pm, and this time I didn't do any correction. Something weird happened around 4am, not sure what that was about, but the high alerts woke me up. I did change my basal rates slightly from yesterday - put my 9pm to 2:30am basal rate up 0.05 and my 8:30am to 1pm basal rate down 0.05. Now I am slowly drifting down each time a number appears, even though there is no down arrow, I think I will just end up going low if yesterday is any indication.

I've read that you're not supposed to do basal tests during your period, and unfortunately next week I travel for work so am not sure that's a good time, and then after that I'm moving next weekend, and by then my trial will be up!

Also, as of last night my senor is a tiny bit itchy. Hoping it just stays a tiny bit and doesn't get worse or interfere with the sensor (other than that weird blip, I'm finding it is always pretty close to my meter). If it does get itchier but doesn't seem to interfere with readings, I might see if I can buy another sensor and keep the transmitter and receiver on loan for another two weeks to make sure it's going to work out.

Ha ha, hopefully no one is getting sick of me updating this thread, but I am still finding this fascinating. Hard to believe it has only been four days! I am starting to get to the stage where I am not checking the Dexcom every 30 seconds. Now I'm checking it every 15-30 minutes, and not at all during the night unless I happen to wake up, and have even had a few alerts surprise me!

Today has been great except that I have been eating food without bolusing. I'm using the same ratios and settings as I did before (with some 0.05 adjustments in my overnight and early morning basal rates). Pretty sure this is how much ormones can affect things from one day to the next. I'll start re-testing in a few days nad try to figure things out from there...

But I did have this today, during a period I wasn't eating, which is pretty awesome!