I agree. I bolused last night before bed and still woke up at 270.
And because i feel i can’t trust my dexcom, i’m still doing fingersticks before meals & when i know i’m high.
I’m just stuck all around in so many areas of life right now and its frustrating.
Try soaking a sensor for a day before hooking up your active transmitter to it. ie, you use your current sensor, install a new sensor but don’t install the xmitter to it for 24 hours. i use an old xmitter to protect the soaking sensor prior to installing the active xmiter. Do that, I get great accuracy the moment I hook up the active xmitter to it. Same accuracy as what one would get from day 2-7 (I’m using a G5–the same soaking technique is fine for the G6).
Your basals might be messed up. That always makes it hard for me to calibrate my sensor well because of the up and down. Could you increase your overnight basal?
Well … I pumped for a lot of years w/o a CGM. As long as I have an accurate meter and strips, I’ll use my pump. Actually, I would always be happier using my pump than MDI (but that’s FOR ME).
DId you feel like that was kinda labor intensive to keep the settings properly adjusted?
I, personally, dont feel like I stand a fighting chance at keeping settings correct without sensor data. I start doing hourly manual checks. Then, I get lazy, and things get outta wack. I worry that can become dangerous. But, I suppose it depends on the individual and their system dynamics.
Labor intensive?
Let’s remember the background. The tools available were an insulin pump, a +/- 20% meter, humalog/novolog.
I received initial pump settings from my endo with the caveat to set my alarm for 3AM and do a finger-stick. From a BG level perspective, it was just like MDI. Test a minimum of 8X/day, but more like 10 - 14X/day. Adjust as needed based on the meter info.
The key difference for me in regard to your earlier point re: danger, is that with a pump, I could make an easier adjustment to my basal rates either on a tempy basis, or on a more permanent basis to handle things like Darn Phenomenon. The ability to (mostly) reduce my basal to accommodate unexpected activity/exercise was eye-opening and opportunity-expanding.
I had far more danger on MDI - finding myself awakened in hospital with no idea how I arrived happened too often.
Nowadays with my CGM, yes, I get quickly lost and lonely without my trending data, and I do wonder how I ever managed without it. I have to remember how to test (more frequently!) and have some confidence in my basal rates.
I actually just did that and am giving it a few days before I adjust again. But woke up low in the middle of the night the first night. Without my dex on, I don’t actually know whats going on in between the fingersticks.
When I was on shots, I’d have to start out higher before I went to sleep as I have a tendency to drop between 2-3 am and then skyrocket right before 6 am. And then of course those times can vary.
But I use an Omnipod now and I like to drop between 2-3 am, so I have an extra light dose between 12-3 and at 6 I start a extra high dose to deal with my dawn phenomenon. I generally also go to bed with a higher number of about 125 because I drop. But if I ease off my settings more I spend too much of the night high. But literally right now I have 6 of the 9 programmed doses settings between 12 am -10 am!
Me too. I was deathly afraid (seriously) to go to sleep at much less than 200 because of the terrible control I had on MDI when we had only R,L, UL, SL and NPH (which I was allergic to and hated anyway). Now I am content to go to sleep if my bg is 100.
Hi! I’m not familiar with the term “compression low” - what does that mean? I’m on a medtronic system but I’m curious about this term. Thanks!
The Dexcom transmitters that are inserted in the body sensors send data back to the receiver or phone or other device using bluetooth. If while sleeping, you bury the transmitter into the bed mattress, it will distort the bluetooth signal causing an artificial low Blood Glucose reading (20-50 points) for as long as the transmitter remains buried in mattress due to body position. It is therefore important to insert Dexcom sensor with transmitter at a place on your body where there will be line of sight between the transmitter on the body and the receiver.
interesting. Is that phenomenon unique to Dexcom transmitters, or would it also apply to Medtronic Guardian systems, do you think? I believe Medtronic uses RF, not Bluetooth.
Sorry, I don’t know as I have only used the Dexcom transmitter and have learned where to place it so as never to have compression lows while I sleep.
It’s important to note it doesn’t happen all the time and for some people they never see it. I very rarely had compression lows with my G4 and G5 systems. Much more pronounced for me with the G6.
Yea, I guess i could do it testing 10 - 14x daily. I do that, periodically, for 2 week tests. But, I dont think I could reliably keep it up on a regular basis. The system would drift and I wouldn’t notice. There would be critical failure.
I feel like there must be some correlation between the number of different basal rates in a day and how many times you have to manually test.
I could be wrong. I’m not sure. Maybe selective memory on my part. But years years ago when they first started coming out with these and making them more available to everyone, there was some research or literature written about these types of machines being less accurate. I’m happy with most of my ‘aware’ feelings and my 5 second readings, as opposed to a minute or two when I first started. The biggest problem I have is matching the amount of insulin I take with the food that I eat. Thanks for the post. It’s good to keep in mind.
I’m pretty sure compression lows are unrelated to bluetooth signals. You can certainly miss a signal because the transmitter is buried, but I don’t think that would change a signal. I think the receiver either gets the signal or it doesn’t.
I think compression lows are caused by decreased bloodflow (or interstitial fluid flow) to the area that’s compressed.
I’m getting this idea from a pretty old article (Susceptibility of Interstitial Continuous Glucose Monitor Performance to Sleeping Position - PMC) so perhaps someone else has more current or better information.
Compression lows occur when the transmitter is buried into mattress which distorts the bluetooth signal and causes low readings.
This is not to be confused with “miss a signal” which occurs when the transmitter is buried in a partner as bluetooth does not travel through bodies, I believe due to body water content, or other technical issues such as a low battery event, being too great a distance between transmitter and receiver, etc.
Please don’t confuse a compression low with missed signal.
My point is that missed signals are bluetooth related and that compression lows are unrelated to bluetooth.
It’s a digital signal. It’s unclear to me how it would be “distorted” into a different number.
I have a very low BMI (Between 18-18) and therefore very susceptible to compression lows. Actually so much so that I can create or correct a compression low within minutes on demand. The speed at which I can create or correct a compression low along with the rapid repeatability and lack of signal loss is what has led me to the conclusion that the culprit is the bluetooth signal rather than a physiologically related event.