Update:
I am coming to the end of my first sensor (Tuesday now, finishes on Thursday).
My main initial finding is that the Freestyle Libre has forced me to re-evaluate my diet.
"A little bit of what you fancy does you good." is patently untrue.
"Just a little bit won't hurt this once; I can cope with a few extra carbs." is also not accurate.
"A beer now and then is fine." also looks to be wrong.
Preconceptions (which seem supported by general discussions on this forum) seem to not always apply to me.
Some things I have identified:
- I seem to have a very extended dawn phenomenon some days which can carry on until about noon.
- My go to keto coffee+butter+cream also seems to spike me in the mornings, which goes against what I expected. Cream at 1.6 grams of carbohydrate per 100 ml shouldn't in theory do this.Butter at 1.8 grams per 100 gms likewise. I'm still trying to work out if it is the coffee. Decaf test soon.
- Prolonged exercise seems, under certain conditions, to raise and keep up my BG levels. This is a real puzzler.
- In general I can tolerate beans and pulses, even half a tin of Heinz Baked Beans (normal version)
My general graphs suggest that I may be over producing glucagon which stimulates the release of glucose into the blood and inhibits the release of insulin. Further study needed.
The most striking change is that the Libre is acting as the voice of my conscience.
I can't kid myself that a treat is OK because the graph shows me that it is not.
One interesting thing is that cutting out all beer (but not all alcohol) plus occasional days off the fat fest in the morning seems to be bringing my weight down.
I have now just reached my all time best of 11 stone 10 lbs without the major pain of water dieting or anything else extreme. I hope that the weight is mainly coming off my waist.
I have certainly dropped below a 36" waist and if I stand just right with the light behind me I can measure my waist at 34".
I haven't been vastly scientific about this during the first two weeks, like keeping a detailed food log, but have mainly concentrated on identifying trends.
My sensor readings are consistently low, but in the second week they aren't as different from the finger prick readings as they were initially. They now seem to be around 0.7 mmol/L low instead of about 1.5 mmol/L in the first week.
The main challenge is to wait for a period when the Libre readings are more or less constant (flat line on the graph) and then do some finger prick testing.
Summary: this is proving to be well worthwhile despite the expense.
Footnote: I just bought two more sensors from Asda which turn out to have a slightly earlier expiry date than the first batch of three. February 2020 as opposed to March 2020. Go figure.