Good Morning,
I've never been on here before, even though I've poked around for a while. My 14 y.o. daughter is Type 1 and we are kind of failing at diabetes. Her last A1C was a 9.5, so I'm trying to streamline things and get a handle on this. I'm trying to find an app and glucometer for her Iphone, any suggestions?? I've seen the 2 in 1 and the IBG Star, but I was hoping someone with experience could point me in the right direction before I buy anything.
Thank you for your time,
Angie
Hello Angie,
First of all, don't feel like failing, Type 1 is hard to control and manage, especially during the teen years. believe me, ive been there.
I have tried out the IBG meter, it is something worth trying out, however i personally did not like it, because i had a bigger phone (with the meter attached to it). also, the meter showed results about 2mmol higher than usually, which is in my opinion quite a lot (36mg dl). however, this could also be a problem restricted to my meter, not the whole system itself. An app worth trying, but not combinated with a meter is mySugr.
Here is a discussion about apps to log BG's, you might wanna look at it:
https://forum.tudiabetes.org/topics/best-app-to-record-lots-of-things
I see your daughter is on a pump, so that is great. maybe reading think like a pancreas by gary scheiner or pumping insulin by john walsh might help you there, i have no idea how long you have been pumping or managing diabetes in general, so those are some things you can try out additionally to bring this a1c down!
Wishing you all the best
SC
Oh, i just remembered, afaik, the IBGstar can only be connected to a iphone 4 or older, as the connection wouldnt match. could be that this has changed now, but when i got it, i got it for my iphone 4.
SC
Hi Angie:
I agree with SC's comments about not thinking in terms of failing... and her suggestions..
I was a trialist for the iBGStar and used it for about a year. The idea is great - keep your meter attached to your phone and its one less thing to carry about. In practice there were too many design faults with the meter. It has the connector for the iPhone 4 so if you are using an iPhone 5 you need to buy the adaptor and connect it each time. Even with the iPhone 4 if you kept it connected to your phone, the connector would fail after about a month. I went through 5 meters.
If you didn't keep it attached to your phone, you could only get about 10 tests before it needed charging which took about 5 hours - Hopeless.
Also, the App wasn't that good.
Joel
Thank you so much, I will look into the books and read the forum. I read the reviews on Amazon for the IBG meters and there were a lot that mentioned the results being off. That's why I wanted to ask before buying. Thanks for getting back to me!!
Wow! Great to know, thank you. I'm just trying to find a way to integrate her logbook chores and glucometer and Iphone, so any other suggestions would be helpful. TY!!!
Please visit our project Glucosurfer.org. We have implemented some unique features like the calculation of insulin on board or the documentation of the menstrual cycle. Our analysis capabilities are really strong because this project has been developed by diabetics. On top of that you can share your diary in forums like TuDiabetes. The free app can be found by searching for "Glucosurfer free" in the AppStore.
I would choose a meter that is independend from the iPhone. The documentation of the blood glucose takes up to 3 digits. For that it makes no sense to bind yourself to the limited app and device of a specific vendor. Usually the documentation will have to include much more: like activity level, carbohydrates, insulin calculation and so forth. Key is to have all the data at hand for analysis and not little convenience that helps to prevent the input of just 3 digits. If you want to buy a meter with better accuracy this study might be helpful.
Hi Angie! I’ll second and third the others thoughts on failing. This diabetes business is hard stuff! Plus, it’s a very emotionally charged thing to wrestle with all of the time, which can play games with our heads, too. So much more than just the physical shots and pokes and doses and numbers.
Anyway, I do a lot of work with a group called mySugr, and we have a really fun app called mySugr Companion that she might like. It has a bit of attitude and fun built into it, as well as challenges to try and get her engaged in her self-care. We’re always working on improvements, too. I’d love to have her take a look and let me know what she thinks of it.
Thank you for your reply, I actually mentioned mySugr to her this morning and she said "that actually sounds cool" instead of glaring at me for daring to mention the D word!! I will look into it with her tonight.
Thank you, I will go to the website and poke around.
Jumping on the mySugr bandwagon!
I'm notoriously bad at managing my glucose levels, but mySugr actually kind of makes it fun. Besides that it really makes it easy to analyze glucose levels because it's really visual. Hope it works out!
Ty! mySugr seems to be the way to go.
One Touch has just come out with a new version of the Verio called the Verio Sync that takes a blood sugar and then using reading frequency syncs with an app on your iPhone. If you go to www.shoponetouch.com and use the code OTSYNC10 you can get it for $20. Since it is the newer line of their glucometers they require use of a specific test strip so you will need to have your doctor write a new prescription.
Thanks for the love, Belle, much appreciated! Angie, please do reach out if you have any questions, suggestions, ideas, etc. Our ears are always open! 
Awesome! Be sure to let her know she can name her diabetes monster. My daughter helped me pick "Chewcarba" for mine. :-)
Let me know if you guys have any questions or need help with anything.
Hi Angie, I have been using the IBG star meters which I like and the app(free) on my iPhone 4s. I like this app a lot and my bg goes right into it or the meter can be used alone too. It's very light weight, but it can also be lost easily if you're not careful. I think you can download the app and try it since it can be used with any meter if you enter the bg manually.
I like being able to put custom tags in for everything, see a graph of my bg and see statistics. I also like flipping through the bg to see what is going on and when I last took fast acting etc. I rarely keep my meter attached to my phone for long, I usually keep it in my purse, and I hardly ever charge it and I've had no problems with multiple testing. I have had some problems with the meters breaking etc. when I dropped them because they're fragile but the company ships me a new one overnight for free.
It has made my life so much easier that I don't mind any issues I have had with the meters. I find them to be accurate and no more problematic from that stand point than the other meters I used. If there is an issue with a bg I always retest to confirm it is in that general range. Btw, mine attaches directly to my phone, no connector- for the iPhone 5's you need an adaptor. I also have two back up relion walmart meters in case one of my ibg's fail- this only happened once when I was eating out- I recommend to always have back up meters just in case. Good luck with getting something that works for her and with everything! I think from all the positive mysugr reviews here I'm going to look at that app also.
Thank you. I think for now we are going to keep her meter and try mySugr as well. Everybody has been so amazing to take time to write a response. I really appreciate feeling like people care!!
We do care, Angie!
You are welcome here any time, with any questions you have :)