I didn’t have a clue. If my doctor had recommended it or even if a friend had suggested it, I would have jumped on it. I had no idea that you could even buy a glucose meter and strips without a prescription. I was not a diabetic and so why would I need it anyway, based on what some people think. That is why I think it is so great that people who would otherwise be oblivious to this issue are hearing about CGMs.
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I don’t think it’s average people who are using them. It’s my understanding from the ads that they are athletes and people who are on very restrictive diets and want to see how foods effect their blood sugar to fine tune their intake.
I can’t imagine anyone just getting one for the hell of it and discovering diabetes on accident.
But, if they ever get this Apple Watch thing working with any accuracy, we might see it shift.
That way many thousands of of people will be testing their sugars with no extra expense and no poking holes in our bodies.
We might see a wave of newly diagnosed diabetics, but they put it off another year. I’m afraid the technology is just not panning out.
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I’m not up to exercising every other day for over 90 minutes of HIIT training. I use HIIT for a 15-30 minutes and I’m exhausted after that.
Who’s paying the cost of sensors in the non-diabetic community? Out of pocket prices are fairly hideous on Dexcom and Medtronic. If CGMs had a wider user base, perhaps the prices could drop.
I have no problem with it for medical purposes. People who are diagnosed with fatty liver disease, Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), or other pre-diabetes risk factors. It could be quite beneficial. I could care less if exercise people want to pay for it out of pocket. Sure! Go ahead! As long as it doesn’t screw up insurance stuff. Who knows? Maybe it will drive prices down?
I try to remember to test to calibrate, but that’s pretty much it. Even when I do calibrate, my Dexcom seems to get it right. I can tell because I’m hypo aware, so I can feel when I’m going low. It correlates pretty closely to what my Dex is showing me.
I wear my Dex 24/7 because now I’ve finally got the Basal IQ running, and, OMG, it’s a beautiful thing. I was having a lot of lows and now, nope. The pump can tell when my sugars are dropping and stops that from happening.
I’ve got one open vial of strips and two waiting. I’m just going to have to remember to keep my reorder date pushed back. Luckily OneDrop also sends a reminder, and I put a reminder in my calendar too.
Some of this is personal in the sense that I have stuff that I’ve kept too long, so I need to break out of the mindset that I might use something when I can pass it on to someone who actually needs it now. I’m employed and insured. I’m in a great local network of type 1s who catch each other and help when we need it. It was different when I was a grad student, didn’t have that network, and things were just more difficult.
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The only things that concern me are (1) not having enough sensors, during any shortages, for people who need them to survive, and (2) the lowest common denominator problem. If enough people who don’t need really accurate readings are buying them, will some insurance companies figure that they can pay less for cheaper CGM systems, not really caring that people are basing insulin dosage decisions on less accurate information? There would have to be 2 classes of CGM systems: those which are FDA approved for insulin dosage, and those which aren’t. That way, medical necessity would have to automatically route you only to those approved for insulin dosage decisions. Lifestyle CGM vs medical CGM.
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The type of CGM and sensors that will be used by non-diabetics (to improve athletic performance, for instance), will only function within normal blood glucose range, and will not be able to be used by those of us with diabetes. So they won’t need ours, and we won’t want theirs.
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What, dogramma said…
Most of the chatter I’ve seen in non-diabetic circles is with brands that do not market to people with diabetes. Those of us using the Dexcom, which is actually quite expensive, are going to be fine.
I see this more along the lines of other health items like Fitbits and Apple watches where the FDA isn’t in it because they don’t need to be vs. wearable like the ones we use as diabetics: pumps, CGMs that talk to our pumps, etc.
I don’t keep up with the brand names of those CGMs because I don’t have to. In those convos that I’ve been in or have listened in on, there are other companies marketing to non-diabetics. Dexcom is not in the building during these discussions.
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Thanks Dogramma & Regina! Good to know.
That was a point of information that I didn’t see anywhere else in this discussion.
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I think some may be helpful for T2 not on insulin.
Here is a good article on several under development.
There are a bunch being developed in various Asian countries that are not even talked about in this article. Maybe because those will never get FDA approval due to the extensive process. If they work, however, and are much lower in cost to what US/Europe has to offer, there will be a large population that will gravitate toward them.
I scoff at the skeptics; especially the clueless one who said, “The base problem, he says, is not so much having an easier way to get a glucose reading, but knowing what to do with that reading in order to improve your health outcomes.” I knew exactly what to do with my readings from day one almost 4 years ago, and with that information was able to lower my A1c a desperately-needed point and a half.
Never underestimate what a person with diabetes can do when armed with good info.
Some informative details here, including how the Supersapiens Libre Sense Biosensor for sports will only register BG in the 55-200 range (whenever it’s available in the USA):
I thought I read somewhere that some sporting organizations are banning the use of these in sporting events. Unless you have diabetes, you are not allowed to wear one because they feel it might give the athlete an unfair advantage? Not sure where this will end up but maybe people will start to understand how complicated this disease is.
All I could find was this, and it seems to only have to do with the French cycling organization, UCI, but apparently they will make exceptions for bikers with diabetes:
Of course, this is only in Europe, but thought it was interesting that so many bikers have already been using CGMs.
However, there are plenty more sports than just cycling and the Tour de France, and Abbott’s Supersapiens CGM has announced they’re partnering with the Ironman triathlon:
I love this response. My mother was totally insulin dependent and my father takes metformin. I never thought I would have blood sugar issues because I was only slightly overweight and my fasting blood sugar was always in the normal range. I just got lucky that both my mother and father saw the same family doctor as me. So when I went to see him when I was 44 years old, he just happened to give me an A1c test (maybe because he knew I was more at risk because of my parents having type 2). I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t know what an A1c was. I had an A1c of 5.9 even going to the gym 3 days a week for like an hour or more and eating a whole food/ food pyramid diet and no junk food. Then I got my own OTC blood glucose monitor, went low carb, and now I am 5.1 at 56 years old. Both my parents got diabetes diagnoses in their 50s, so it may be that I dodged a bullet by having information from the A1c test. A CGM is just more information. Some healthy people with no diabetes in their family might use it. As long as it doesn’t lead to shortages, I have no problem with that. I use a glucose meter now, but since I hit menopause last year, I have to be stricter with my diet to get the blood sugar numbers I want. I would want a CGM to see what my blood glucose is doing at night. I still can get hot flashes, and I might get some useful data from a CGM that would help me mitigate that.
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No problem.
I just saw a Tweet that reminded me of the name of one of these companies: Levels.
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