Sugar Stalked!

About a year after I was diagnosed with T1D my endo asked if I was interested in getting a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM).  I couldn’t say “no” fast enough.  I’d read about CGMs and knew that they gave a glucose reading every 5 minutes.  That’s a new data point all day, every day, for a total of 288 daily reminders of T1D.  At that point I was manually checking my sugar by pricking my fingers about 10 times a day.  I was afraid that having more data available would turn my moderately obsessive compulsive behavior into a full blown disorder.  I had visions of sitting at my desk waiting for the next reading to pop up and I knew that was a bad place for me to go.  So I said no, my doctor moved on, and that was the end of the discussion.

Fast forward 9 months or so, and my T1 had continued to develop.  More highs and more lows, especially the kind of lows so severe they woke me up in the middle of the night and left me fumbling to find the glucose tabs I needed to get my sugar back to a safe place.  Over a few weeks the idea of a CGM started sneaking into my thoughts, and I started thinking personal safety won out over the possibility of an OCD diagnosis.

During that time my friend Holly and I attended the Type One Nation Summit in Cleveland and saw a presentation that included a discussion of CGMs and the “follow” feature.  I realized that not only could an alarm go off at my house when my sugar got too low, that same alarm could go off in other houses to make sure it would be next to impossible for me not to wake up the next time my sugar dropped to 50 at 4 AM.  I decided then that I'd bring up the topic at my next visit to the doctor.

And so, I’m now the proud owner of a Dexcom G5.  I’m wearing a transmitter stuck to my stomach with a tiny wire inserted just under my skin.  Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?  But this clunky looking gizmo is sending readings to my iPhone every 5 minutes.  I get glucose readings every 5 minutes, all day, every day, just like I’d feared last year.  And the reality is that it is fascinating.  In just under 2 weeks I’ve already seen the powerful impact that exercise has on lowering my sugar.  I’ve seen how quickly Chinese food can cause a major spike and how quickly it can go back to normal.  And I’ve seen the “beer curve” for the first time, where at a baseball game I watched my sugar go up from drinking a beer and then saw the insulin I took to cover that beer bring me right back down to where I was before.  Sure, I’m someone who likes to play with numbers.  But this is science and biology and fun all rolled into one amazing T1D nerd package.

And that safety piece?  Holly and her husband both downloaded the Dexcom Follow app on their phones and can see my glucose readings in real time.  The goal is to improve my safety and add peace of mind for all of us.  What’s really happening?  They may be a bit more compulsive than I am already!  I’m now being sugar stalked and within the first 2 days got a text that pointed out “you’ve been low all day.”  It’s funny to realize some of the things I’ve known all along, but that other people haven’t and couldn't have seen.  I know it's giving them a new perspective on the ups and downs that happen throughout the day with T1, but I also know it can make them worry when they can see the lows that they never knew about before the CGM.  For me it’s incredible to see what happens in the 2 hours after meals, the gap when I typically didn't test before.  And at times, I'll admit it's a bit of a compulsion to see where my sugar is.  Right now I'm checking my number way too often because I'm so curious.  Holly is too, I know.  We’re all adjusting, but that will take time.  I’ll probably ask another friend to download the app so I’m covered in 2 different houses, and I know she’ll go through the same adjustment period.  But in the end I absolutely love my CGM and I’m glad I finally got over my worries about having one.  I can’t wait until I’ve had it a bit longer and can start really analyzing my own data!


FYI...the chart below is the last 12 hours.  You can see I've gone from about 80 to 107 so far after dinner...