I am T1 diabetic for more than 20 years now. In this period of time I have filled several diaries with massive amounts of data. As a software developer and consultant I was faced with the challenge of maintainig the diary and handling my job as well. As it turned out the diary lost the competition and this led to an unpleasant development for my glucose control.
I made these approaches to get back on track:
-
I developed a software and entered all the data at the end of the day. This was too time consuming and led to nowhere.
-
I bought a Palm and management software. This worked for me but then the data synchonisation had a problem and destroyed three months of input. In addition the data was not accessible for other analysis programs.
In 2006 I started to develop a web site named Glucosurfer.org. For this service I had some very clear visions how it should work:
-full anonymity (no E-Mail or other personal data)
-free of charge and financed by donations
-accessible via mobile phone, smart phone and web
-diagrams which are helpfull to identify recurring problems
-mg/dl and mmol/l support
-automated calculation of insulin dose (via carbohydrate factors)
-allow decimal doses for insulin
-allow the documentation of special pump programs (delay, multiwave, temporary basal rate)
-data export via XML
-possibility to share the diary in forums or with diabetologists. For example the following link will lead you to my diary (you can drag the diagrams with your mouse): http://www.glucosurfer.org/goto?diagram&language=en&user=278&share=3788281
In 2007 I met other diabetics and we joined our effords in one team. Since then Glucosurfer.org and his features have slowly grown. Later in 2007 the Institute for Diabetes Research Münster decided to fund our starting phase and to support us with their knowledge. Today more than 30 users (T1, T2, pen or pump) are managing their diary daily with our project.
In my optinion the whole approach of Glucosurfer.org makes only sense if you directly use your mobile phone to maintain your diary: measure, start mobile phone, manage diary, done. This way I have collected more than 4030 diary entries since may 2007. This reliance on mobile phones is very important since it will help you to keep your diary always current. The other key factor is good analysis where we have found some interesting diagrams to visualize the quality of glucose control (like the Diagram - Comparison of days).
Glucosurfer.org is an offer for diabetics - an additional choice under the few choices we have. Therefore I would very much like to invite you to give it a try. Maybe you have the time to test the access via mobile or smart phone to get the whole picture. I must clarify that it is not a community like tudiabetes - it is just a place to manage and analyse your diary: manage at glucosurfer.org, discuss it here in tudiabetes.com.
In a way our system is oriented on the German approach to diabetes. In Germany we take the carbohydrates in gramm and divide them by 10 to get carbohydrate units (CU). This means 53 gramm of carbs are 5.3 CU and this value will be recorded in the diary. We think in these units to make the multiplication with the carbohydrate factor easier. Let us say you need 3 units of NovoRapid at 12 o’clock to catch 1 CU (10 gramm of carbs).
This means if your are going to eat 5.3 CU (53 gramm) you must apply 5.3 x 3 = 16 units of NovoRapid. In our settings you can enter carbhydrate factors for every hour of the day. Based on these factors the proposal for the insulin dose can be calculated automatically.
I hope this approach is not to far away from the American system and I would like to hear your feedback on this approach and our project. Please be honest and fair at the same time - we have invested much of our private time to make it happen.
Best regards,
Holger
Type I and Founder of Glucosurfer.org