Five Days as a Pre-Borg (Diabetes Related)

Last Thursday, I went in to get set up for a five-day run with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM).

Quick overview – with type one diabetes, the pancreas up and quits producing insulin, because it’s a LAZY SLACKER! Therefore, I take insulin via an insulin pump, which delivers a baseline dose throughout the day, and allows me to program additional insulin when I eat. I check my blood sugar about six times a day to help me keep it within a relatively healthy range.

The CGM is a device that automatically checks your blood sugar every five minutes. It automatically sounds an alert if your sugar goes too high or too low. (Sadly, it can’t be programmed to do the red alert klaxon from Star Trek, but some day…)

It works by measuring the interstitial fluid, as opposed to the blood, so the measurements aren’t quite as precise as the ones from my glucose meter. But it does a great job of showing trends (whether your blood sugar is climbing or falling or just chilling and hanging out). It also produces a graph to let you see what your blood sugar is doing over time.

I was hooked up with a Dexcom CGM, which involves a tiny flexible needle that goes into the side of the belly and is hooked up to what may or may not be a T-800 chip from Cyberdyne Systems. This made me a little nervous, since I’ve already got the catheter from my insulin pump stuck to one side of my belly, and the CGM is a little bulkier, as you can see here.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.