Hello & advice needed

[bulgariuv]

Hello guys, glad to be here.

I've been a diabetic for 25 years, since 1994.
I've been through all the shabang associated with diabetes, from using the very first type of insulin in the world and boiling needles to resterilise them ( because there were not available in my country ) to insulin pumps and CGM sensors.

Now the nasty part is that for about 2 years I can't feel my low glucose like the way I did.All the usual symptoms faded and now I only get a headache.
Because I do have normal headaches also I often find myself with a 500 mg/dl glucose because I took a usual headache as a low glucose and head no chance to test.
Or I do find myself with glucose as low as 29 mg/dl and just a headache.
You realise how alarming this is for me because I can collapse on the street or while driving or God knows what !!!

Unfortunately in my country just insulin, some glucose tests and a very low amount of pumps are included in the medical care service.

SO.....

I managed to gather the money to order a miaomiao and I am expecting it by the end of march / beggining of April.
Also managed to buy 2 libre sensors ( yaaaay ).

I planned to use this system with xdrip and my phone as a collector and a Xiaomi Miband 3 as an extended display.

I initially wanted to use a smartwatch as a second collector but I concluded that a smartwatch is a bit too expensive and with a very short battery life ( compared to Xiaomi ).
Plus in my opinion it's not really that important to have a second device capable of collecting ( I might be a dumbass ).
To me more important is to be able to see fast my glucose ( without having to reach the phone ) and to have vibrating alerts on my wrist.

A bit later I figured out that my Xiaomi has no sound alerts ( again dumbass ) and only a small vibration. I also am 100% sure that it will only give the low / high alerts as brief notifications and not show a continuous glucose level.

With my novel ended, what do you suggest as a system / smartwatch to continuously see the glucose on my wrist?
I really need something with a good battery life and somewhat waterproof.....
Also capable of collecting or not, what's your input?

Much appreciated.

 

[jackois]

Hi,
there are a couple of ways forward. You can use CGM with alarms as your post asks advice on, or, regain your hypo awareness.

For the first one, I use dexcom's G6 system, sensor. transmitter and my Samsung S7. No calibrating, pretty accurate and good alarms when low or high. Read out and vibration alarm, available via bluetooth, on a smartwatch (I use a Huawei One watch). Cost, apologies for not knowing your financial circumstances or availability where you live, runs at £160 a month. Watch and phone extra.

The other way would be recovering your hypo awareness. There are a lot of articles and so on, should you run a google search on this subject... one of those may give you the answer you search for.

I wish you well and hope this helps.

 

[bulgariuv]

Hi,
there are a couple of ways forward. You can use CGM with alarms as your post asks advice on, or, regain your hypo awareness.

For the first one, I use dexcom's G6 system, sensor. transmitter and my Samsung S7. No calibrating, pretty accurate and good alarms when low or high. Read out and vibration alarm, available via bluetooth, on a smartwatch (I use a Huawei One watch). Cost, apologies for not knowing your financial circumstances or availability where you live, runs at £160 a month. Watch and phone extra.

The other way would be recovering your hypo awareness. There are a lot of articles and so on, should you run a google search on this subject... one of those may give you the answer you search for.

I wish you well and hope this helps.

Thank you for your reply & advices.
Until and if I regain my hypo awareness I need a cgm like air.
My financial posibilities are pretty low.Since dexcom or libre are not covered by health insurance I decided to go on libre because it's cheaper in my country.

So you only use your watch as an extended display and not as a collector, right?
What is the real battery life of your watch? Are you able to see a continuous reading of your current BG or just the alarms?

 

[jackois]

You are correct. The watch is linked to the phone via bluetooth and gives a continuous display of the level. Indoors, I don't use the watch, but it's battery gives 12 hours minimum life. The phone can give a reading with a single button touch as well. The app on the phone, gives trends rising, falling or steady for the last 12 hours. You can input carbs, insulin dose and so on which helps understand the trends...

I used the Libre until I started getting skin problems from it. The information it gives with trends and so on are excellent as well, allowing you to see trends.

Both systems use interstitial fluid to test, which means that the reading you have actually occurred 15 minutes before. This is ample to let you understand what is happening with your blood sugar.

Hope this helps.

 

[aline.tuty]

Hey Jackois, I now you said that it is better with a samrtwatch, but would be possible to use a smartband as well? (miband3).

Thank you

 

[bulgariuv]

Hey Jackois, I now you said that it is better with a samrtwatch, but would be possible to use a smartband as well? (miband3).

Thank you

I do use also a MiBand.
But as far as I know it's not possible to see realtime the bg ( like on smartwatch ).
On MiBand you only get the alerts if you buy an extra app from them.

However if you choose a smartwatch it's not mandatory to be a collector.You can use it just as a "view device".
This means it won't replace your phone to get data directly from your sensor, you'll still need the phone.

For example I use an old pebble and I am very happy with it because I get 1 week+ of battery on the watch.

Hope this helps