Getting hypo alerts with libre, blucon and xDrip+

Damon_

Member
Messages
11
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
I'm using velcro dots, like these:

cirt-bant-para-para-yapiskanli-cirt-cirt-velcro-dot.jpg


I've cut them in the middle and positioned them left and right from to hole, as to not cover it for hygienic purposes.

I've got hooks on the sensor and loops in the blucon.

It makes the whole sensor kind of thick, but it's working great. Easy to take off and plop back on for showers.
 

GavinTully

Member
Messages
9
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
I normally use some double sided tape. I found the arm band was moving at night and slowly shifting the sensor, leading to a failure.
 

Tony Williams

Member
Messages
13
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi. I've only just discovered Blucon and xdrip+ my question is will both work with the iphone X . this sounds like a great way of getting CGM relatively cheaply. I've been using the libre for over a year and love it but this would take it to a whole new level.
 

Scott-C

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,474
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Hi. I've only just discovered Blucon and xdrip+ my question is will both work with the iphone X . this sounds like a great way of getting CGM relatively cheaply. I've been using the libre for over a year and love it but this would take it to a whole new level.

Hi, Tony. Blucon has it's own inhouse app, Linkblucon, with a version which will work with iphones. However being an android user, I've never used it, so have no idea how good or bad it works. Some of their facebook/twitter posts don't look that promising. When I used the android version of linkblucon, I found it a bit basic and sketchy compared to xdrip but that was several months ago now so maybe they've improved them now.

xdrip only works on android, not iphone. However, there's a guy, Johan Degraeve, who is developing an iphone version of xdrip called iosxdripreader and it appears from the link below that he is or has tweaked it to work with blucon. Again, as I'm not iphone, no idea of the ins and outs of that. Looks like you might need to contact him to sign up for it.

https://github.com/JohanDegraeve/iosxdripreader/issues/13


PS: from the kit in your avatar pic, I'm guessing you're perched on the side of a dinghy - remember that the blucon transmitter isn't waterproof! But easy enough to take on and off for wet sports, or maybe carefully wrap up in a small plastic bag. Used to tear around in Lasers, Graduates and a 470 in my younger days!
 

Damon_

Member
Messages
11
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Just wanted to express my appreciation for this system again.

Lately things have been going great and have been uneventful, so I wanted to share.


lQgNbfC.png



I didn't think a CGM would make that much of a difference, but it really does.

Cheers fellas, may you all have uneventful days.
 
Messages
4
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Just wanted to express my appreciation for this system again.

Lately things have been going great and have been uneventful, so I wanted to share.


lQgNbfC.png



I didn't think a CGM would make that much of a difference, but it really does.

Cheers fellas, may you all have uneventful days.

This is insane!!!
Can't wait to receive my Blucon when I see graph like yours!!
Keep up the good work friend.

@Scott-C
Are you still using the android watch with xdrip? Do you still find it useful after a few weeks or did the fuss go away? :p
 
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DunePlodder

Well-Known Member
Messages
861
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Just wanted to express my appreciation for this system again.

Lately things have been going great and have been uneventful, so I wanted to share.


lQgNbfC.png



I didn't think a CGM would make that much of a difference, but it really does.

Cheers fellas, may you all have uneventful days.

A CGM plus a lot of thinking & constant hard work makes that much difference! If you are type 1(?) that's amazing. Well done either way.
 

Scott-C

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,474
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Are you still using the android watch with xdrip? Do you still find it useful

Hi, yes, still using it. There are times when it's just much more convenient to have a quick glance at the watch instead of dragging the phone out.

I don't bother with hypo/hyper alerts during the day, just at night, but it's got a useful little feature where the watch will vibrate for a few seconds if I'm dropping or rising fast. Might have missed clues like that with just the phone through not looking at it, but can't really miss the watch vibrating, so a good way of getting a heads up on a rapid drop. It does that at any level irrespective of set hypo/hyper levels.

It's also got a step counter. I've never been interested in fitness watches as such, but you can get the steps transmitted to xdrip+ and shown on the graph as a series of greenish "blobs", size depending on amount of activity, as per screenshot below. I'm kinda lazy (main form of exercise is walking to the pub!), but I wonder whether that feature would be useful for runners: maybe use it as a visual clue to assist in assessing extent of "after drop" post-exercise, that sort of thing.

Could be wrong, but I vaguely recall reading something about how loopers were maybe looking into using the step counter as a variable in loop algorithms.

Screenshot_2018-01-19-17-52-36.png
 

Scott-C

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,474
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Just wanted to express my appreciation for this system again.

Lately things have been going great and have been uneventful, so I wanted to share.


lQgNbfC.png



I didn't think a CGM would make that much of a difference, but it really does.

Cheers fellas, may you all have uneventful days.

Wow, Damon, three days 100% in range! Nice bit of work, mate.

I think the difference cgm makes is it lets us apply little undramatic tweaks and nudges here and there while still in range instead of having to take a sledgehammer to it after it's gone out of range.

Stability seems to beget stability.

Stay flat and prosper!
 

Damon_

Member
Messages
11
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Thank all of you for your kind words.

Going on 5 days and no sign of stopping, time to set a new highscore!

I think the difference cgm makes is it lets us apply little undramatic tweaks and nudges here and there while still in range instead of having to take a sledgehammer to it after it's gone out of range.

I agree, you can make smaller adjustments and can react so much faster with a CGM as opposed to a single finger prick, which doesn't give you a proper "end glucose rise" value.
Being able to see what is happening every 5 minutes is a godsent, seeing how your BG is trending and knowing exactly when and where it breaks off from going +X.X to -X.X or vice verca is amazing.

A CGM plus a lot of thinking & constant hard work makes that much difference! If you are type 1(?) that's amazing.

Yes, I'm type 1. Got diagnosed at the age of 12 in 2006, using Novorapid and Levemir.
Lately however I've been contemplating going on a pump due to how good Android/OpenAPS look.

The automatic basal rate adjustment and After-Meal-Assist features look absolutely stunning.

Lots of thinking and constant hard work are the only things keeping Diabetes in check, I've been a perfectionist ever since I quit my rebel ways in my mid-teens. From the Age of 14 to 15 I ran around with something like a 9% HbA1c. Ever since then I've been cruising around 5.3 to 5.9, depending on the current state and the funk of the machine/method used to measure.

One of the trickiest things is bolusing for fat and protein(especially with a pen), luckily there are a few resources online, because my doctor didn't know anything about how to handle it properly. I imagine using After-Meal-Assist from the closed loops would be spectacular in handling those slow and steady rises if you set your target BG accordingly.

Also, a Family member of mine won a Sony Smartwatch SWR50 (the only one which can be used as NFC-reader/transmitter, lucky me!) in a raffle shortly after Christmas, and since they didn't have any use for it, I now have a backup reader to strap on the sensor if my blucon decides to stop working at some point.

Cheers
 
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JoeT1

Well-Known Member
Messages
277
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
@Scott-C

Found I need to use wearable widgets with my S3 Watch, but not updating all the time, so I have kind of given up on that.

As for adding in the steps, i'm into this big time, but how do you add them in? I seem to have gone through the settings and can't find it anywhere, if it could be synced with my watch for that, it'd be great.
 

Scott-C

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,474
Type of diabetes
Type 1
As for adding in the steps, i'm into this big time, but how do you add them in?

In Settings/Smart Watch Features/Android Wear Integration, scroll down to the foot of the page, and there's a button Use Wear Health Data:

Screenshot_2018-01-29-23-27-33.png


Once that's switched on, a little graphic stick figure of someone walking appears on the graph at right hand side in portrait style and you can toggle the green blobs on and off from there. It's a bit random, sometimes need to toggle it to get it to show the blobs.
 
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redditchdiabetic

Active Member
Messages
28
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Great piece of software Xdrip had it for 2 months and works out lot cheaper than a Dexcom, Message for Scott and Damon how do you get on your History graph your Bolus Units and Carbs eaten?

Many thanks.
 

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Scott-C

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,474
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Great piece of software Xdrip had it for 2 months and works out lot cheaper than a Dexcom, Message for Scott and Damon how do you get on your History graph your Bolus Units and Carbs eaten?

Many thanks.

Hi, RDD, when you're on the home page showing the live graph, there's a grey pencil icon top rightish, sort of just below the trend arrow.

Click that icon, it'll bring up a screen to input carbs/bolus (the other two buttons on that screen are for bg tests not used for calibrating, and entering the carb/bolus treatment time if you're not doing it "live" and want to enter one you did earlier but forgot to enter).

Once you type in the entry, a green tick mark appears on the input screen. Click that and it then gives the option of confirming or cancelling the entry.

Click confirm and the entry will then show on the live graph and should show up in the history screens too.

When you make an entry, another couple of icons will show up beneath the pencil icon to let you "undo" and "redo" for about 15 mins - done that plenty of times when I've realised I've entered 65u instead of 65 carbs!

If you've not been entering carbs/bolus, you've maybe not been using the predictive simulations?

In Settings/xdrip+ Predictive Simulations Settings, you'll get a screen like the two below where you can set various parameters based on your own personal biology (It comes with presets - I'm still figuring out how to set mine - don't even know what some of them mean, let alone how to calculate them!).

Once simulations are set to on, then each time you enter carbs and/or bolus, additional lines will appear on the graph which extend from the last blue dot and basically makes a rough estimate of how things will pan out in the next few hours based on the parameters set earlier.

The prediction can take a while to settle down and often changes as time goes by and gets more actual sensor readings, but I've found it quite useful to get a very rough, broad indication of where things might go based on a particular bolus/carb entry, and then just undo the entry and try another one if I don't like the look of it.

It's kind of like a visual bolus calculator actually seeing how a bolus/carb combo might pan out.

Once I've committed to the shot, the predictions frequently turn out to be surprisingly accurate, as long as one remains aware that they can change rapidly as additional actual sensor data is fed in to the algo.

Here's the set up screens:

Screenshot_2018-01-31-21-51-29.png


Screenshot_2018-01-31-21-51-37.png
 

Damon_

Member
Messages
11
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Last night I set my new sensor and the way it looks is just wrong.

I've been getting so much sensor noise that it becomes really hard to accurately estimate whether or not it's an ongoing upward trend or noise. (The low and high jumps from 6am-2pm have been a stable 100-120 (5.5-6.6))

Has anyone ever experiences something like this? I was not compressing the sensor by laying on it.

I'm pretty sure my sensor is set all-right and not stuck in a muscle.

One of the weirdest phenomenons is when Im rising/falling the sensor will go +/- .5 once and then +/- 10+ on the next reading, which never happened on any previous sensor.

On the libre reader which I don't use at all, it's coming in at a stable -45mg/dl all the time.

Got any ideas?

ejkFQBH.png



Cheers
 

Scott-C

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,474
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Got any ideas?

Yikes! I get the odd bit of noise now and then but nothing as bad as that or for such an extended period.

New sensor so maybe it just needs time to settle. I've had a couple of sensors before I got xdrip which were just plain crazy, might be that, but the consistent reading from the reader suggests not (although the 45 you mention is quite low, UK 2.5, so maybe settling in time required).

Maybe try changing the transmitter battery.

In Settings/Display Settings, there's a couple of options, "Smooth sensor noise", and "Display filtered plot", see pic below, both of which seem aimed at dealing with noise. I've got both switched on, don't know if it'll make a difference, but no harm in trying if you've not already got them on.

These things are great when they work, but a dog when they don't!

Screenshot_2018-02-01-00-40-09.png
 

Damon_

Member
Messages
11
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
I have both of these options enabled and I changed the battery when I put the sensor on.

I hope it is age and settings related, I actually made a mistake when setting up the sensor in xdrip and didn't put the correct time in for when the sensor was inserted.

I had set it up 2 hours before midnight and activated it in xdrip shortly after, preventing me from clicking "Yes, today" and inputting the correct time at the "When was the sensor inserted?" prompt. The app would think the time was in the future, preventing me from typing in anything before midnight, hence my clicking of "No, not today". I should probably have clicked yes and select midnight as the insertion time. Sadly I wasn't able to find any way to input the date and time manually in the settings.

Maybe it has something to do with it - only time will tell.

Worst part about this is that my highscore will not be properly displayed, even though I was in range all the time!

Thanks Scott, you're a beast.
 

redditchdiabetic

Active Member
Messages
28
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Many thanks Scott - C that worked a treat.

I am thinking about buying an Android Smartwatch to run with the Xdrip Plus, Has anybody got any ideas if it works and ideally not an expensive watch just in case it does not work.

Many thanks.
 

DunePlodder

Well-Known Member
Messages
861
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Many thanks Scott - C that worked a treat.

I am thinking about buying an Android Smartwatch to run with the Xdrip Plus, Has anybody got any ideas if it works and ideally not an expensive watch just in case it does not work.

Many thanks.

I use a Pebble Classic. & love it. Yes they are out of production, but can still be picked up new for around £50. The battery lasts up to 4 days even when receiving data every 5 minutes from my xDrip box & G4 Dexcom. I actually wear my Pebble overnight so it vibrates if I'm going low.
There are better looking, more sophisticated, watches but if you just want to test the system go for the Pebble - Ebay may have some cheaper used ones.
Also being able to read text/email messages on my wrist, or see who's calling, is more useful than I thought it would be.
 

queenofit

Member
Messages
5
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
I'm so excited to find this thread! Been using the Libre for yonks but want to tighten my control to avoid making my retinopathy worse. Have just ordered the Nightrider, and an Android phone (i currently use iPhone) and am working my way through the Nightscout instructions... So pleased that I can use this really helpful thread too :) Does anyone know if I will be able to use my Apple watch for this, either with my iPhone or with the Android phone?
 
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