Question: how to understand the info I've downloaded?

Hi all. Though I've been on the Dex for a little while now, I've only just downloaded the information. That said, i have no idea what the heck I'm looking at! I hate this type of stuff, as it's not my thing, so I'd just like to know what is the best information to analyze, and to give to my doc? My motivation is that i've noticed recently what I thought was a trend around 2am with a rise in BG, and wanted to investigate so I could change my basal rates...that said, now I'm not sure if I see it to be consistent? Ugh. Long days at work as of late, no time for diabetes. sorry if this is weird.... Any advice would be most appreciated :) Thanks!!

My CDE likes the Modal Day Chart over 7 days. I usually print out the last three weeks. She uses it to locate trends and to fine tune my rates (my endo wrote orders that allow her to change my rates).

There is a fine-tuning protocol at https://pumpschool.minimed.com/512/6010.tpl that provides instructions on how to test the basal rate, the meal bolus and the correction bolus.

I am like Brad a little. The way I use my Dex is as a tool.

The reason my Dex is an important tool in the management of my blood sugars is in tracking and monitoring my body’s response to meals and the environment I react within. For example, I will eat the same exact commercially prepared breakfast and lunch three days in a row.

The one day, my after lunch blood sugar will sky rocket almost vertically and plunge almost as quickly so I am normal at the end of a three hour window. The rapid up and especially down, causes me to feel hypoglycemic, hungry enough to eat a whole cow, and very irritable. This extreme physiological jerking around causes interference with my interpersonal interactions as if drugged.

A second day, my blood sugar will have a gradual rise and fall and remain under 150 mg/dL. Again this is with the exact same breakfast and lunch on both days. Here I do not have the extreme physiological responses and the bizarre psychological impact.

On day three, the response will be in the middle of the two extremes.

The bottom line is a CGM is a tool generating a large amount of data. There are additional pieces of data to add to the curves from the CGM to make sense of how sweet any of us are. Keep in mind where your emotions and other hormones are also and you have good data to make good decisions to improve your life.


Thanks for the link on fine tuning protocol !

I like the Success report and the hourly trend when I'm looking at information for myself. I also will click through the glucose trends one day at a time to see details. If you enter events you can mouse over them to see carbs and bolus doses.

My dr likes to look at the glucose trend with one day per page and the modal day with the last seven days. I also do the hourly trend for the past 30 days. Printing from Dexcom is a royal pain in the butt though and poorly designed in my opinion. This is one of those things you will probably have to ask your dr what helps them and what doesn't.

It's also something that when you get a chance you should take a look at what's in the various reports and see what's helpful and what isn't.