You can't always believe what you read.

[Brunneria]

I've had a couple of reactive hypoglycaemia lows measured down to 1.6 and 1.9mmol/l
No meds, just my own body playing silly games. My RH lows are more usually in the 2s when they happen. The 2s are much more comfortable than the 1s.

And then there have been a couple of weird RH lows on the Libre during the day, where the line drops sharply, runs flat for a short time and then rises again - which leads me to believe that the Libre stops measuring at those low numbers, then picks up again as the bg rises. I was definitely hypoing, it was just that I seemed to go too low for the gadget to read it. [irony] Very confidence building! [/irony]

Not to be confused with night time compression lows on the Libre, which show an easily identifiable wide flat line which can be seen on Robbity's 3rd April chart.

 

[zand]

I've never seen a flatline like Robbity's, just a dip and then a steep line back up to 4+ soon afterwards.

 

[Robbity]

I've never seen a flatline like Robbity's, just a dip and then a steep line back up to 4+ soon afterwards.

That's probably because what was being logged was my arm reacting to a sudden alien artifact invasion compounded by me then lying on my sensor arm - so not a true recording of any actual glucose levels. I never get that type of graph if I allow longer after insertion before activating a sensor. Lowest I've been is low fours so no way am I really in the running for any lowest of the lows record!

Robbity

 

[nomoredonuts]

Slight diversion from my own thread...being a poor southerner and not a lottery winner, I have largely overlooked using a Libre. I would be interested not know what proportion of T2's on here use one. (That may be a stat that a techy Mod could help with).
And also has anyone done a rough costing of the system, from initial purchase to day-to-day running ?

 

[Scott-C]

Re compression lows, as there's a few libre users here, I'd recommend a read of Beyond Fingersticks by William Lee Dubois, a couple of quid on kindle.

It was published about ten years ago, which is like pre-history in cgm, but he makes a lot of good points which still hold true today, the main one being that while cgms are incredibly useful devices, we need to figure out ways to know when they are working well and, just as importantly, when they are going skew-whiff.

I don't just look at the number: I also think about whether the number makes sense in relation to the last time I calibrated it with a bg test, what I've done since then in terms of eating and exercise, and how much insulin I've got on board and where it is in it's 3 to 5 hour path.

I've been able to pick up a few wrong uns by doing that and cross-checked with my meter when I doubt it.

It's not just compression lows. Sometimes the sensor filament can get temporarily jammed up against cells so that the sensing bits are covered and not able to read ifg.

Here's a good example of a wobbly - did my bg really drop from a steady 6 to just above 2 and then back again in the space of 40 minutes - probably not:

 

[Scott-C]

And also has anyone done a rough costing of the system, from initial purchase to day-to-day running ?

It's a bit of a moving target at the moment. The NHS cut a deal with Abbot, the libre makers, to buy at £35 per sensor (Abbot also threw in 50 test-strips per month for the T1 market) and, for a while, some pharmacies were selling at that price, but it didn't last long.

I'm on script for libre now (my area, NHS Lothian, has one of the most liberal policies anywhere - if a T1 wants it, they get it), so I've not kept up to speed with prices, but it seems that pharmacies in major stores like Asda, Tesco and Superdrug are charging around £45 to £50 per two week sensor.

Quite a few T2s have posted saying they just use it from time to time to assess how particular meals work for them and then store that info away for future use, so it needn't be a regular monthly commitment.

As you'll have gathered from earlier posts, libre can be skew-whiff at times - their inhouse factory calibration didn't work out that well (they produce a batch, pull a few, calibrate them against a known glucose amount, then apply that to the whole batch. But they are changing that from this month to calibrate each one individually).

To get round those calibration flaws, many of us are buying, at around a one-off cost of £160, a rechargeable transmitter called MiaoMiao which gets stuck on top of the sensor, reads it every 5 mins and sends it to a phone app, like the screenshot in my post above, xDrip+.

The app lets you type in a bg reading to calibrate it to tell it, you think I'm 4.3 but I'm telling you it's 5.1. It really tightens up the accuracy - I frequently get readings which are only about 0.1 to 0.5 away from a bg test.

https://miaomiao.cool

https://github.com/NightscoutFoundation/xDrip/releases

 

[Brunneria]

Slight diversion from my own thread...being a poor southerner and not a lottery winner, I have largely overlooked using a Libre. I would be interested not know what proportion of T2's on here use one. (That may be a stat that a techy Mod could help with).
And also has anyone done a rough costing of the system, from initial purchase to day-to-day running ?

Re cost of Libre, it varies. A lot.

People with diabetes don’t pay VAT
People without a D diagnosis (RHers, pre-Ds) do pay VAT

Full price on the Abbott website a sensor is £58. The VAT can be discounted at checkout, if entitled.
A starter pack is £160 for 2 sensors and a reader.
Some people don’t need the reader because they can use their mobile.

Some pharmacies and supermarkets have them available for less.

When I asked at my local Asda, I was quoted around £40 until I told them I couldn't claim VAT off. At that point the price magically jumped to £58.
Different places (Boots, Superdrug, supermarkets) have been reported as asking different prices from one week to the next.

I would rather pay Abbott direct and have it delivered to my door, on a No P&P offer, than trek out of my way to an Asda and pay the same, plus petrol.

I gauge the value of the Libre in its revelations:
- what happens at night.
- when stressed
- when eating unusual food
- when working out peaks and hypos and their causes
- spotting problem foods
- spotting foods that are delightfully non-problematic

When I started using the Libre, I ran 3 back to back and learned a wonderful amount.
2? 3? years later, i have one just 3 or 4 times a year (usually when on hol/ Easter/Xmas), and rarely prick test in between.

Therefore my current annual test expense is approx
4 x Libre = £232
2 x Tee2 tubs of 50 strips = £16

So thats approx £250 a year => £5 a week

If I ran the Libre 24/7/365 it would cost me £58 x 26 = £1500 a year
So you can see why I don’t!
[rant]
I’m already on two decades long medications that I pay prescription charges for, plus supplements for malabsorption, and I pay privately for thyroid, HbA1c and vit deficiency tests, because my doc doesn’t think I need them, since my bg is now well enough controlled that he says ‘you’re not even pre-diabetic’ and I don’t need to test for deficiencies.
So why does he say this?
Because I am no longer deficient in Vit D, folate, B12, Magnesium and Manganese (due to private testing and supplements)
And because I track my own blood glucose and keep my HbA1c down (due to self funded Libre and testing)
[/rant]

Re your interest in stats on T2 Libre use, why not start a poll thread?

 

[enb54]

Slight diversion from my own thread...being a poor southerner and not a lottery winner, I have largely overlooked using a Libre. I would be interested not know what proportion of T2's on here use one. (That may be a stat that a techy Mod could help with).
And also has anyone done a rough costing of the system, from initial purchase to day-to-day running ?

I have been looking at the Freestyle Libre and on checking the Canadian prices I see one can be had for $227 which includes the reader and two test sensors, each sensor good for 14 days or so. The replacement sensors are $89 here, so for one year you would need 365/14 = 26 sensors x $89 = $2,314. The total for 1 year would be about then approximately $2,550 (CDN) for sensors and reader. Will stick with my present blood glucose monitor and Excel spreadsheet for now...

 

[nomoredonuts]

Re cost of Libre, it varies. A lot.

People with diabetes don’t pay VAT
People without a D diagnosis (RHers, pre-Ds) do pay VAT

Full price on the Abbott website a sensor is £58. The VAT can be discounted at checkout, if entitled.
A starter pack is £160 for 2 sensors and a reader.
Some people don’t need the reader because they can use their mobile.

Some pharmacies and supermarkets have them available for less.

When I asked at my local Asda, I was quoted around £40 until I told them I couldn't claim VAT off. At that point the price magically jumped to £58.
Different places (Boots, Superdrug, supermarkets) have been reported as asking different prices from one week to the next.

I would rather pay Abbott direct and have it delivered to my door, on a No P&P offer, than trek out of my way to an Asda and pay the same, plus petrol.

I gauge the value of the Libre in its revelations:
- what happens at night.
- when stressed
- when eating unusual food
- when working out peaks and hypos and their causes
- spotting problem foods
- spotting foods that are delightfully non-problematic

When I started using the Libre, I ran 3 back to back and learned a wonderful amount.
2? 3? years later, i have one just 3 or 4 times a year (usually when on hol/ Easter/Xmas), and rarely prick test in between.

Therefore my current annual test expense is approx
4 x Libre = £232
2 x Tee2 tubs of 50 strips = £16

So thats approx £250 a year => £5 a week

If I ran the Libre 24/7/365 it would cost me £58 x 26 = £1500 a year
So you can see why I don’t!

Re your interest in stats on T2 Libre use, why not start a poll thread?

Thanks @Brunneria ! A super response. Just what I needed.

(*begins googling "how to start a poll thread...")

 

[Bogie]

For accurate readings always make sure that your meter's battery is either fully charged or battery replaced if not a chargeable version. A couple of years ago I shocked myself when I saw a reading of 35.7 after dinner one evening. I knew that was wrong and grabbed a 2nd meter that I had and it read 7.4. Charged the first one and all was back to normal If you have a very low or very high reading then a 2nd test is a good idea. If you do have an extreme reading, either way, then you most likely would know by how you feel at the time if it is correct.