Hi Scott, Would you be so kind to explain to me about the transmitters, Im going to ask my diabetic consultant if I’m eligible for a Libre on the NHS when I see him in April.
I’m a bit confused about the transmitter/ transmitters I’ve see people talk about on Diabetes UK website. The transmitter is the item which is inserted into the body I assume?
If I get the kit by the NHS, I believe it comes with a meter a reader & 2 sensors which last approximately 14 day’s.
I’ve seen various transmitters mentioned as I stated but is this something that doesn’t come with the complete kit via the NHS.
I also own an iPhone 6 which I believe I can down load the software to my iPhone ?
Regards
Kev
Hi, Kev, I started a thread a few months back about the transmitter I'm using with libre, link below, which explains the ins and outs of getting it working and some links to how to get it etc.
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/getting-hypo-alerts-with-libre-blucon-and-xdrip.127195/
The basic set up is you've got the libre sensor on your arm (NHS hopefully provides that bit), then a separate transmitter from a different company (bought privately for £96, not on NHS) stuck on top of the sensor with a plaster, sending results to free phone apps, either linkblucon (android and ios versions, but very basic) or to xdrip+ (android only, but very good) or to spike-app (ios only, don't know about it).
As a starter for ten, if you get libre, it's a small plastic disc about the size of a two pound coin which goes on top of your arm. There's a tiny filament attached to it which gets inserted into your arm by a spring loaded mechanism used to apply the sensor. The filament is the only bit inside you - it's a few mm long, fraction of a mm wide - not the transmitter.
The sensor last for two weeks, then you peel it off and replace with a new one.
All well and good, but the only way you can get a reading and the 8 hour continuous graph with that set up on it's own is by manually waving the sensor reader over the sensor, or waving a phone with the app, librelink, on it. I think librelink has recently brought out an Apple version', maybe only for v7, but sorry, I don't have an iphone so haven't been following that side of things.
Now, doing that manual scanning to get the reading is fine so far as it goes, but it means that if you're sleeping, you're not going to be awake to scan, so you won't get any advance warning of a hypo.
That's where the transmitter comes in. A company was set up by an ex-Abbott employee who saw a niche for himself.
www.ambrosiasys.com makes a small bluetooth transmitter called a blucon nightrider. Stick it on top of the libre sensor with a plaster or armband, it'll read the sensor every 5 mins whether you're awake or not, send it to a phone app, which'll ring if you drop below a certain level. So you basically get hypo alerts, but it's useful for a stack of other things too.
The NHS won't do the transmitter. They've not even heard of it. It's a one off cost of £96 from ambrosiasys, just need to change the battery in it every few weeks, mines has been running for about 10 months now.
Ambrosiasys has an inhouse app, linkblucon, which had android and ios versions but they're kinda basic and I don't use them. I think they've only recently introduced alerts.
The way I've been getting alerts is by using the transmitter with a much better app, xDrip+ but it only runs on android.
There's been some recent developments with an ios app
https://spike-app.com/# which appears to work with blucon and seems to be kinda similar in the sense of giving alerts etc like xdrip+ but, again, I haven't tried it.
It's worked for me pretty good these last ten months.
The transmitter is about the size of two £2 coins on top of each other. Pic here showing it alongside a libre sensor (took it from the wrong angle, it's smaller than it looks)
