Rant!!

[Tweety88]

Ok so, I have always been well controlled, am not on the Omnipod and libre (libre because of pregnancy funded by our local diabetes charity).

Yesterday the nurse put a new libre sensor on for me, it began reading LO but I knew I wasn’t low so I checked, I was 5.6.

I checked again just after my lunch still LO but a finger prick revealed 7.8. So I left it a few hours and either has readings of LO or sensor wasn’t reading and to try again in 10 minutes. I went back up.

I waited for her and she said to check my bloods, so I did and they were 3.9. I knew it was snack time as while being pregnant I don’t bolus for snacks.

I had a couple of jelly babies ready to have my snack when I was finished! Now she looked at my libre and commented that my sugar was 4.0 before my libre got changed and that it could have been Low all day... I’m sorry if it was reading LO I wouldn’t be having that conversations with her, especially if it’d been that way for 5 hours!!!

She then told me I couldn’t drive for 45 minutes after a 3.9 blood sugar reading which had been treated and was now 6.0. She said the reasoning was that it could drop again on the following 45 minutes, now I live 5 minutes away (and where we live up I can’t drive for more than 20 minutes without driving into the sea!!). If I had been hypo I wouldn’t get on the motorway!

I said you can’t have such tightly controlled bloods without dropping to 4ish occasionally especially when pregnant and when appointments disrupt your snack times!

I would understand if my sugar was 2 but it wasn’t! Bit of an overreaction I feel!

The fact she thought I could read LO for 4 hours and still be talking to her and not dead boggles my mind!

And another thing... why do they feel that because we have diabetes we love sitting round waiting for appointments for hours and hours because we don’t have anything like lives....

So annoyed! Who are these people?!?!? Do they have any common sense!!!

 

[Juicyj]

Hi @Tweety88 The libre can take up to 12 hours to calibrate once applied so there would be a period during which you would need to carry on using your meter. The fact it was reading LO indicates this. I take very little attention of mine during the first day because of this, was your nurse aware of this do you think ?

I know you were frustrated with what your nurse told you about your hypo but your nurse was right to tell you to hang on for 45 minutes, DVLA stipulates this as it's there to protect you and other road users. Yes I know it was frustrating to sit around but you're doing it because failing to follow DVLA guidelines and losing your licence would be a much bigger pain

 

[Tweety88]

We’re not actually under the dvla here though they are only guidelines not enforced as we have our own and I could understand if it was a major hypo of if I was going to drive for 2 hours, but we can’t do that where I live. A 5 minute drive home when your sugar is 6 is not a problem. I do understand but I think the whole thing is dreamed up by people who don’t know what it like to live with diabetes!! I know my own body and what my sugars do and I had put a -50% temp basal on to combat it anyway. I’m well controlled and in control of my diabetes.

And as I said if it was a bad hypo it would have been a different story and of course I would have happily waited longer. I just feel 3.9 is a bit excessive!

I’ve never heard of it before I’ve only ever heard of ‘5 before you drive.’

 

[Tweety88]

In fact it was so close that I tested with the other hand and it read 4.2 which would have been acceptable!!

 

[Deleted Account]

I had put a -50% temp basal on to combat it anyway.

I use NovoRapid in my pump for both bolus and basal.
I was told (and found it to be true) that a change in the basal takes nearly an hour to take affect so putting a reduced temporary basal on when you are already low will stop you going lower when you get home but not for your journey.

It is incredibly frustrating as I use my temporary basal a lot for exercising (some exercise makes my BG go up and some makes it go down) and I have to remember to change my basal before I leave home rather than when I get to the gym or climbing wall.

The only way I can immediately stop a falling BG fall further is to eat fast acting carbs. But, even then, I don't drive until I am confident that I have caught it and see my BG rising regardless of the DVLA laws.

 

[Tweety88]

And I wouldn’t drive either unless I was confident, but I react quickly to hypo treatment as I always have and I don’t need to snack after (unless already planned to like yesterday) the reason for a temporary basal after hypo treatment is to stop you going low again within the next hour, which always works for me!

 

[phdiabetic]

Same thing happened to me - libre was reading LO while I was on the phone with Abbott complaining about its accuracy. They didn't accept multiple finger pricks from my meter saying I was 8+. I would not be talking to you if I was actually LO! No common sense!

 

[TheBigNewt]

@Tweety88: Sounds to me as if you've got things under good control and that you may not have been under the care of a diabetes nurse genius at the time. So was this your first Libre sensor experience (it was hard to tell from your post), and are you recently pregnant? If so I can get understand their concern when it reads "LO", even if you weren't "LO". I know I haven't used a CGM, I've just read about the Libre here, and have a friend whose kid has a Dexcom. My bent is the Dexcom is the one you want if you're gonna mess with one at all.

 

[Tweety88]

@Tweety88: Sounds to me as if you've got things under good control and that you may not have been under the care of a diabetes nurse genius at the time. So was this your first Libre sensor experience (it was hard to tell from your post), and are you recently pregnant? If so I can get understand their concern when it reads "LO", even if you weren't "LO". I know I haven't used a CGM, I've just read about the Libre here, and have a friend whose kid has a Dexcom. My bent is the Dexcom is the one you want if you're gonna mess with one at all.

Hi, it’s not my first experience with it, I have used it before, it just felt like it was never going to get a reading!

Thankfully it did start working after about 8 hours of being on. If my sugar drops to around 4.5 or less it reads lower and takes a good while to spring back even when a finger prick reveals I’m ok. X x x

 

[Tweety88]

I don't think these poor nurses can win. People moan when they don't care. People moan when they care too much.

I know it seems that way, and I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, just sometimes I wish that they didn’t sound like they were reading from a text book and apply things to real life.

The thing with me is, I have been absolutely spoilt rotten, my diabetes nurse I had for 10 years was incredible! She was a special sort, always above and beyond and with a dose of common sense and applying diabetes to life too, not just according to the piece of paper! But she retired earlier this year and no one will ever fill her shoes!

 

[Juicyj]

Hi @Tweety88 I can relate to having great nurses, my first one was super and really caring, my next was also lovely but too busy all the time and could never get hold of her, my current one is super amazing, she's busy too but I can always catch her when I need to and she's been brilliant in getting me back exercising again.

They are only human after all and can only do their best (which they do )

 

[leahkian]

The thing is that most diabetic nurses are reading from a book or what they have been told to say. Every thing they learn is based on trials and the end result is broken down to the middle they might do a trial on 10,000 people and the average is put down as law but the thing is no two diabetics are the same and only we know how our bodies react. Diabetic nurses provide help to us and are vital to the consultants as a link. The only thing is they are not diabetics and we could do the same thing for two days in a row and not have the same blood readings, my consultant who i think is the best in the world has told me that i know my own body better than he does that is why when we have a problem we both have input and a plan to go forward together as he says its common sense. Remember we all need to let off steam and have a rant now and then we are living with a unforgiving condition and we are only human

 

[tim2000s]

And another thing... why do they feel that because we have diabetes we love sitting round waiting for appointments for hours and hours because we don’t have anything like lives....

This is one of my biggest bugbears. It drives me up the wall regularly...