My name is Joe Clifford.
I am 67 and have been a type 1 for nearly 34 years. I live I Cave Creek, Arizona. I recently received my Dexcom G5 through Medicare. I have learned by my G5 that my diabetes control is all over the place. I’ve been working with diet and watching my trending and trying to get a handle on it. I am now looking at getting the t:slim x2 pump through Medicare and Totally frustrated that I cannot integrate the two and because of that will not be able to use the updates!
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Hi, Joe!
Welcome to TuDiabetes. I’m glad Dexcom is helping you understand your bg trends. Others here have experience with Medicare, I’ll let them chime in on that. My son has been using dexcom for about eight years and it’s been such a great tool.
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Welcome Joe!
It sounds like the Dexcom is a great addition to your treatment plan. Been using CGM’s on and off for years but using Dexcom for around 5 years. It is the best thing out there for me. I love my pumpbut I would give it up before my CGM! (And I love my pump!) So sorry the Medicare issues make it harder to function. But at least they are finally covering this very important part of ones treatment plan. I know Dexcom is working very hard to get the FDA to ok the different uses of the Dexcom (phone/pump) it will happen. Hang in there and as someone else has said “knowledge is power”!
Welcome and enjoy the group. We can be fun loving, crazy, opinionated, passionate but we all care!
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Thanks! 
I am not so concerned with the smartphone issue but the integration of the G5 and t:slim x2! That one drives me crazy!
And I cannot figure out how Medicare would know?
Welcome to TuDiabetes, Joe. Interacting with people who live with diabetes can be a powerful asset to deal with diabetes. It can be a difficult condition to manage well, but it is possible. Curiosity, knowledge and persistence go a long way to making this happen.
A CGM will enable you to learn about your unique glucose metabolism. I encourage you to upload your data to the online Dexcom Clarity website. It has taught me to know what numbers to follow and to do various personal experiments so that I better understand how food, exercise, and other factors affect my glucose traces.
Most people love the realtime glucose information and safety that the CGM provides but miss out on the power of looking back at your recent data to help you make adjustments. These adjustment include basal rates, insulin to carb ratios, insulin sensitivity, and the duration of insulin action.
While I love all the new electronic diabetes hardware, I still believe that the most important asset a person with diabetes has is knowledge. Good luck and I hope to see more posts and comments from you, @Jalopiejoe!
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@Jalopiejoe
My suggestion is not to be overly concerned at this point in time.
The current integration between the Tandem t:slim X2 pump and the Dexcom G5 cgm is merely to allow the pump to be used in place of the Dexcom Receiver.
Convenient - yes. Big deal - no.
The next update will be the Predictive Low Glucose Suspend (PLGS) update which Tandem has a current launch goal of Summer 2018. By the time that updates is available, hopefully the Medicare issue will be resolved in terms of cgm data going to the pump.
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I have been using my new Tandem t:slim x2 with AutoSoft XC infusion set going on 5 days now!
Still need to tweek profiles or settings a bit but overall so far this thing is AWESOME!
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Good Job.
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