IPRO testing

Type 2
1

Greetings friends…and life goes on.

I have the opportunity to do an IPRO test on Thursday this week. If you aren’t familar with it, it’s like an outside pacemaker that they attach to your skin on your stomach. It measures your BG’s every five minutes for 24 - 72 hours. I am aiming for 48. Then you get a printout, like an adding machine tape of what your BG’s are doing through the time period. You write down in a small journal what you ate, what you did, exercise, stressors, etc. so that you can pair them up with the readings. I am hoping that this will tell me why my sugars have been so spacey lately, and what if anything we need to do to have them even out more effectively.

Also, my CNP and Doc aren’t doing this test. They don’t even know about it, because a former employee is one of the best diabetic nurses in town and she is offering me the chance to try it.
I don’t know if they would jump up and down for glee or frown on it, I would hope they would appreciate the additional information…but who knows. I have a choice, I can either tell them before, or share it with them afterwards. Ask permission or beg forgiveness. I"m the one in charge and control…the nurse doing it is doing nothing bad, it’s her field, a doc is working with her, but they aren’t taking new patients, so I can’t just switch to them anyway. It would be rather like a consultation. Thoughts?

I am feeling better about things today, and just hope that I can keep up moving towards health…rather than giving up.

Cathy

2

Go for it! Just keep in mind you’ll get a ton of data (lots of squiggly up and down lines of blood glucose levels) and you’ll want some professional help to interpret those numbers–and decide whether or not to act on them.

One thing that could be tricky is if your CNP and doc aren’t familiar with the reports and are uncomfortable interpreting them. If that’s the case, they may not be equipped to help you use the info to “keep up moving towards health” as you put it (nicely put).

A 3-day temporary CGM (continuous glucose monitor), the iPro is the clinic version, can tell you lots: if your carb counts are off, if any meds you’re taking are the wrong doses or given at the wrong times, if you need new or different meds or combinations, if your blood sugars are OK fasting but peak too high after meals (common if a person with type 2 is starting to need some additional insulin to manage blood sugars), etc.

Good luck with the test! Try to eat and act as “typically” as possible and take really, really good notes (usually, the forms they give you don’t have much room to write in–feel free to make extra notes. The more info the better.). Let us know how it goes!

3

Thanks Kelly. This is really a favor to the nurse friend who will be using it at camps and in classes, and to me to see where we are missing things. I’ll keep you posted