I am just wondering if we are ever going to get a better treatment or at least devices that don’t constantly beep all of the time? I am really starting to go crazy from all of these devices to the point where I can’t stand it anymore- it is causing me so much stress.
I turned off the app on my phone because I could not stand having my phone and my Dexcom receiver constantly beeping at me. My father follows my blood sugar on his phone and he keeps complaining to me about turning it back on.
I’m just so sick of all of this, I would like a life without feeling like I’m in an ICU room with things beeping at me constantly and needles etc in my body with itchy rashes and irritations/ pain.
Obviously this question is not for people who don’t really need a dexcom or a pump and who seem to have blood sugar which is a lot easier to manage for whatever reasons.
You can turn most of the alarms off. I think there is only one alarm you can’t turn off and thats when the reading hits 3.1mmol (56mg). If anyone knows a workaround to turn this off, please do share.
On the dexcom app, Settings > Alerts
On the tslim pump, its under Options > My CGM > CGM alerts
And for the sound, its under Device settings > sound volume > (scroll down ) CGM alerts
Hehehehe, meee. I, too, hate the beeping. I HATES it.
You running your Dex off a phone app? Is it G6? If so, you can change the alarm to be slightly less annoying. You can change it to something not as loud or intrusive. It can be something more meaningful.
Right now, I have a police siren for rapid drop. That one gets my attention pretty well.
But, there is something MUCH less annoying for when I hit 60 or go above 180. Different alarms are more meaningful because then I can tell what is happening without interrupting what I am doing to physically look at the device.
Yes I know that and I have done it but I still get alarms at every change in bg, no matter how long apart it is. I have set to vibrate for everything but it still alarms me of course for below 55 with that awful alarm. Both my phone and receiver. And then there is the pump constantly beeping at me as well.
I am just at the point that I can’t stand it one more minute. I am still on g5, you mean I can change it to music etc for the low low? Everything else seems to be light and vibrate but it still REALLY drives me crazy and is causing too much stress. and I can’t tell which is which unless I look at it. I am going to get a watch but you still need your phone then. Does the watch alarm you as well?
And then there are the times when it says 90 etc.but I feel off /the low and my bg is really 40 or something, ugh.
I also use my receiver because I don’t trust the phone not to fail etc. I am just using the receiver now. I wish they would make a watch that works directly with the transmitter.
Doesn’t sound like your alarms are all set to off. Can you put up a screenshot of your dexcom alert setting screen? There are a couple of places you have to change it, the “always sound” isn’t the master control I don’t think. The only one that should sound is the one under 55, but nothing else. If you are getting alarms blaring at every change in BG, then there may be some setting that needs to be changed.
Post a photo of the pump setting as well so we can address both.
I only get sound at the 55 the others are vibrations but they still drive me crazy. I am just going out for a walk but will post some shots later hopefully. I can’t set them all to off though because it really does warn me sometimes. But it is driving me crazy that it does it so often. I have my range from 80-120 as soon as I hit 120 I nearly always have to increase basal a lot or I will spike up and stay there for hours. At 80 I often need less basal or juice and I need the drops and increases because my bg can travel very fast when it does.
If you don’t want that many alerts, you may have to relax the rule somewhat. So for example if you have the high alert set too low, then it is of course going to alert you earlier than you would want. Its a bit of a balance and different for each person depending on the sugar control level they want to achieve and the level they currently have.
If you are currently always running high then perhaps it means your dosage isn’t correct and you should be addressing your dosage. But if its alarming but really you are not that high, then perhaps your high value is set too low and you are being fatigued by the annoying warnings which sounds to be your case.
Post your settings and which alarms are the ones you find annoying and we can look at correcting that.
No, I have my basal and everything as good as it will ever be. I have been doing this for 9 years now. As I said I need the high setting exactly where it is and I need the low and high drops and climbs as a safety measure.
I did not ask for advice on how manage the insulin etc. No one can do that except each person and everyone is different. Next time I see my cde I will ask her if there is any way to stop the constant vibrations because sometimes they seem to happen with even a one point change in bg which is crazy. A lot of the time they are wrong as well.
I use only the Dexcom CGM receiver, and only 2 alarms being the low alarm at 55 (Can’t do anything about that one) and a high alarm at 120 (wish I could set that one lower but 120 is the minimum Dexcom allows). To mitigate annoying alarms when BG jockeys between 119 and 121 during the day, I wrap the receiver in a handkerchief and put it in my pocket. That way I still barely hear the beeping and the din is so faint that it no longer bothers me. A blaring alarm is what was driving me nuts. At night, I put the receiver under my memory foam pillow which is quite thick and muffles the sound to a point that still wakes me, but without the jarring blare that frightens me into going back to sleep. If I don’t want to hear it at all at night, under the duvet it goes, near my knees, so it still gets the signal but alarm is so faint that I sleep right through it.
Respectfully, I wasn’t trying to give you advice on how to manage your insulin. I was only trying to highlight what it could mean when you are getting alarms for highs.
It does remind me of the early days of Dexcom (Seven) where the constant feedback was people wanted more alarm options and louder alarms. Be careful what we ask for…lol
But I agree the below 55 alarms will drive you nuts. I appreciate that at night, but during the day can be very frustrating.
I keep my alarms on. low set 100 high set 160 and rate of rise and rate of lowering. It is a helpful guide to me especially when I am busy. I do not have low symptoms until I am about 55 or under, yes it is a bit annoying however when I do not want the high alarm to go off I set the high alert to 370 or something
Yea, you can change the alarm, but its only for G6 and its only on the phone app.
That old alarm is so loud and obnoxious and soooo annoying.
It woke me up in a fit of rage this year and I got onto this website in the middle of the night having a kanipshit. At that time, they had just pushed the upgrade to allow for different alarms. Its sooo much better, now.
Lol, you sound like me, I get very stressed out by this stuff a lot of the time. Fortunately when I sleep almost nothing wakes me up, not the alarms anyway, lol. If it does I do not get as stressed by it and just go back to sleep. I do wake up a few times though usually. It is the waking time alarms or when I am trying to fall asleep that drive me wacky mostly, they always happen at the worst possible times too.
One of my neighbors talking across the street woke me today I think even with ear plugs maybe though. After that I stayed in bed reading instead of sleeping more which is good because I need to switch back to an earlier schedule.
Well, that will be something to look forward to for starting the g6 soon, and I will try the watch too. I am looking at refirbs and older versions to save money. They sent me a new receiver as well so I don’t have to update the old one, but I prolly will to have a back up.
Yes I get it. But the problem is the alarms not the insulin. the bg will do what it wants to pretty much regardless of how hard you try for many of us.
If you only find it a bit annoying it is not a problem. I find it more and more stressful and intrusive. Mine is alerting me with each point of bg change a lot of the time which is crazy. For instance as I am typing this, in a 5 minute period, it has alerted me 4x for a 56 slant arrow down and my finger stick is 96. Calibration brought me to 74 slant down, so lets see what happens and if it will stop now. Often it just goes back to even lower.
I have posted about this here before but no solution was figured out. I need to talk to cde and see if she has a solution.
Yes I think I had a seven and I sent it back because it was so inaccurate. Then my endo yelled at me to get a dexcom again due to lows even though he said it was not accurate at first. I don’t remember what alarms they had then, but the 55 is SO bad, lol, Also even the vibrations seem like they have a noise on the receiver compared to my phone.
And it does not really wake me up, I think what wakes me up is my bg symptoms when it gets really low, I drink juice and go back to sleep. During the day that noise just stresses me out even more on top of the low or possible low.
