FREESTYLE LIBRE ON SALE!!!!

[igmr]

I do not like that you need to leave the strip in to record carbs and insulin. Messy. If you take it out it turns off, you have to scan and then record against that. You can't add or correct insulin / carb data either, I've given up using it for that and gone back to a manual record.

Mine doesn't do this either. Sounds faulty. Did u call abbott?

Definitely sounds like a fault. Mine asks for blood when I put a strip in every time no matter what the meter is or isn't doing. Okay, I've not tried it with a USB cable attached.

I get BG and ketone strips from my GP.

 

[tim2000s]

I do not like that you need to leave the strip in to record carbs and insulin. Messy. If you take it out it turns off, you have to scan and then record against that. You can't add or correct insulin / carb data either, I've given up using it for that and gone back to a manual record.

Erm, you don't have to. If you've turned it off, you can turn it back on, go into the log book function and add notes to the last reading. You can also edit these as long as you haven't scanned since. There seems to be a time out on this (so if it's more than about 15 mins old, you can't add/edit notes) but you can certainly do it afterwards if you have accidentally turned it off.

 

[igmr]

Had a long conversation with Abbott this morning, went through a long list of problems covering scan results, sensors, hardware and software.

What came across was that (a) no way can I return and get a refund (b) what I consider unacceptable differences between scan and finger prick values they consider to be acceptable (c) my levels are probably more stable than those of their testing subjects (d) the software is naïve and poorly thought out (that's my professional opinion from 30 years of running software product development).

I have been asked to email in copies of reports and photos of the error codes on the meter.

I know I cannot use scan data to calculate bolus, there is no way of knowing how accurate the scan is. So their claim about doing without finger pricking is, shall we say, overly optimistic. My experience is that the meter is useless for logging carbs and insulin - taking a glucose strip out means you have to rescan and you only have a 15 minute window to add / correct entries (fiddly unresponsive screen and a 04:27am hypo makes that a mockery). You cannot transfer data from one meter to another nor can you use exported data back into the reporting.

I love the basic premise of the libre, the trend data is fantastic (if inaccurate), but by jiminy (not my phrase of choice) have they cut every corner and made it as user unfriendly as you can get.

I have a diabetes review on the 3rd Dec. Can I take this data in and expect the NHS to make sense of it? More importantly just how hard are they going to laugh when they see print outs giving variances between scan and finger prick values of between -2mmol and +4mmol? It's all very interesting stuff but about as accurate as reading tea leaves when viewed clinically. What really does not help is that all 3 sensors I have tried have taken 48hrs to 72hrs to reach a level of predictability so you know that 10% of your historic data is dubious and is skewing the weekly / monthly summaries. Can I really show daily graphs to a diabetic consultant and pick and choose which are relevant? Oh, that's the sensor warming up, ignore it.

Okay, I'm going to run with the sensors I have keeping one back for Christmas. I'll probably dump the system after that though. Shame, it's all very pretty and it does give a ball park approximation of what your glucose levels are doing - I have been able to correct my basal from it but once it gets to the grind of bolus, well, if I calculated bolus from scans I would mostly be injecting too little with the occasional but inpredictable very real chance over dosing into hypo.

Okay, I target 4.5mmol with my bolus calculation, maybe that is too tight but it suits me for a number of reasons. I'm not going to increase my HbA1c to fit the Libre inaccuracies. 8 to 10 finger pricks a day still required.

The decision to dump the Libre saves me £1200 a year, an eye watering cost not to be ignored.. I'm really quite disappointed, I had great hopes for this system. maybe they'll fix it in a year or so.

 

[igmr]

Erm, you don't have to. If you've turned it off, you can turn it back on, go into the log book function and add notes to the last reading. You can also edit these as long as you haven't scanned since. There seems to be a time out on this (so if it's more than about 15 mins old, you can't add/edit notes) but you can certainly do it afterwards if you have accidentally turned it off.

My programmers used to call such things as removal of a test strip a a "stupid user error" and then go on to explain a convoluted user unfriendly work around. Of course the programmers never actually tried using the software they'd cobbled together between on-line game playing. A lot of unfriendly software gets released this way, people have been brainwashed into accepting low grade usability because of lazy programmers and sales people rushing unfinished product to market.

I've given up recording data on the Libre, My spreadsheet is far quicker, more flexible, stores data on the cloud and works across multiple devices including android and apple. Abbot want me to print things out in a format that my diabetes nurse will not understand.

This rolls into an NHS problem of inconsistent systems, they should be telling these meter manufacturers what data they want for import to a standardised NHS reporting and analysis system. It would be easy to just squirt data up to the NHS to a centralised database for consultants to review for your appointment.

To be fair though, all the meters I use have pretty cr*p software, Abbotts is better than most.

 

[tim2000s]

It really does look a lot like it's a case of your mileage may vary. I've been quietly impressed with the consistency between sensor and finger prick data and more importantly, the variance here is no different to the variance I've seen across different meter brands (+/- 1.5mmol/l across meters!!!!) which is slightly disturbing to say the least.

What I'm intrigued to find out is the variance across different users with different body fat levels. Mine's been effective at 13% body fat (which is relatively low compared to the general population). I wonder how differences might affect results.

What I'd also like to know is how many people actually have one of these and what the population with issues actually is. Given that I ordered mine a couple of weeks after they became available, and my order ID was GB5141, it suggests to me that there are >5,000 users in the UK, and if this is rolled out Europewide, we could expect that there are >60,000 users Europe wide.

If the people who have had issues are as limited as we are seeing, I would expect that Abbott would consider it to be a success. Looking at the number of users in the Facebook group, there are 948. Even if all of these are complaining, that would make up less than 2% of European users. Now this is all guesswork, but most manufacturers would take a 2% noise value on something new as being a reasonably low value. Especially on something as subjective as this.

What I have no data on is how the roll out of things like Dexcom and other CGMs worked and what the issues that people saw were. I'd be surprised if they were very different from this though, and I suspect the real issue here is that the platform is very low cost (relatively) and has had a much bigger public access roll out than other CGM products.

 

[tim2000s]

I've given up recording data on the Libre, My spreadsheet is far quicker, more flexible, stores data on the cloud and works across multiple devices including android and apple. Abbot want me to print things out in a format that my diabetes nurse will not understand.

This rolls into an NHS problem of inconsistent systems, they should be telling these meter manufacturers what data they want for import to a standardised NHS reporting and analysis system. It would be easy to just squirt data up to the NHS to a centralised database for consultants to review for your appointment.

To be fair though, all the meters I use have pretty cr*p software, Abbotts is better than most.

Each to their own. Finding the spreadsheet on a phone, then fiddling around on a tiny screen to enter data in a non-native format is not my idea of ease of use either! End user experience is a complete PITA to deal with and different users have very different expectations.

Likewise, health services requirements for data formats differ. If our NHS could agree on a format it would make life a lot easier. By doing so though, each individual country requires a different format and the end result is a more expensive product.

If a diabetic consultant/nurse can't interpret the data from the Libre then I'd actually be concerned, because in my view it's very readable. But then the NHS tends to be stuck 20 years behind.

 

[xorsyst]

I'll probably dump the system after that though.

Can the scanner be re-purposed for a second user? It seems a waste to dispose of that part if it can.

 

[tim2000s]

Can the scanner be re-purposed for a second user? It seems a waste to dispose of that part if it can.

You can use it as a standard meter...

 

[kitty55]

@kitty55 - I think most of my poor accuracy with the Libre is when I am either very high i.e. in double figures - a 10 on my Mobile will read as 14 or higher on the Libre or very low i.e. a 2.9 on the Mobile will read as 5 something on the Libre. The worrying thing is that the Libre always reports my BG as stable at these times i.e. horizontal arrow. If it reported my BG as moving fast in one direction or the other I would accept that I need to test, but stable and way out is unacceptable and dangerous.

@smidge Yes, I discovered that as well with the horizontal arrow. But as you said it defeats the point having it as I'd like to know in which direction my bs is going

Glad to report though that I spoke to customer service this morning and they did some calculations and said there must be a fault so I am getting a new sensor. I'll start my 2nd one tonight and hopefully it behaves a bit better than the one I have on now, fingers crossed!

 

[igmr]

Can the scanner be re-purposed for a second user? It seems a waste to dispose of that part if it can.

I'll use it as a straight bg meter, I much prefer the individual foil wrapped strips to those that come in drum anyway. End of the day, I do prefer Abbott over all the other meter suppliers (been mostly using their meters since 1981), I'm just disappointed with the scanning side. I've sent Abbot a file of all my reports showing discrepancies between BG and scans and 5 - yes 5 - pics of the pages of errors being reported by the meter. And a note about switch 2 on the touch screen being dodgy.

I really do hope this is just teething problems.

 

[smidge]

For anyone who is interested..... Just put my new sensor on. I put it on my right arm in approx the same position as the first was on the left arm. First one didn't hurt at all going in. This one was rather painful. Still aches s bit an hour later.

Also, OMG how hard to get the first one off!!!!! Think mine had superglue on it. No need for extra tape here. Whoever it was that knocked theirs off on the doorframe (think it was @smidge) must have really whacked it

Yeh, that was me. I did give it quite a thwack, but I think it just caught it in the most vulnerable place - just on/under the edge of the sensor itself - it came of in one clean movement - it was a little sore though! I'm ready to replace the second sensor tomorrow, but I think I'll try to do that in a more orthodox way LOL.

I hope your arm stops aching soon MrsB - my first one hurt a bit and ached for a couple of days, but the second one was painless, so I think it's pot luck. Great, a masochistic game of Russian roulette to look forward to tomorrow!

Smidge

 

[logindetails]

@igmr what reason did they give you for not being able to get a refund? In many peoples cases the system is not achieving advertised claims. I don't see, under current European legislation, how they can legally refuse to refund even in cases where they have replaced 'faulty' sensors/readers.

I think it's now crystal clear that the system does not work for everybody.

 

[MrsB]

Yeh, that was me. I did give it quite a thwack, but I think it just caught it in the most vulnerable place - just on/under the edge of the sensor itself - it came of in one clean movement - it was a little sore though! I'm ready to replace the second sensor tomorrow, but I think I'll try to do that in a more orthodox way LOL.

I hope your arm stops aching soon MrsB - my first one hurt a bit and ached for a couple of days, but the second one was painless, so I think it's pot luck. Great, a masochistic game of Russian roulette to look forward to tomorrow!

Smidge

Arm is no longer painful thankfully. Am actually very impressed that this 2nd sensor seems to have been really accurate straight from the start. Approx 0.4 out compared to my meter most of the time.

Am being quietly horrified by what my graphs look like tho. Mountain range springs to mind. Some big changes in the offing I think

 

[logindetails]

Can the scanner be re-purposed for a second user? It seems a waste to dispose of that part if it can.

Yes, to an extent.
You can change the users profile in the software and just elect to create reports from the date the new user started using the reader.
However estimated HbA1c and average glucose will take into account readings taken by previous users if those readings are less than 90 days old so those figures would need to be disregarded until you know that all the previous users readings have been deleted.
If the reader wasn't used for 90 days then you effectively have a new reader with no stored data EXCEPT the system info which will show the number of scans done and test strips used ... and possibly the system event log.

 

[igmr]

@igmr what reason did they give you for not being able to get a refund? In many peoples cases the system is not achieving advertised claims. I don't see, under current European legislation, how they can legally refuse to refund even in cases where they have replaced 'faulty' sensors/readers.

I think it's now crystal clear that the system does not work for everybody.

I didn't push the point, more laid down a marker of discontent / intent to push for refund. They now have all my data and photos of the errors, plus verbal information on the difficulties I've had so I now wait to see what their response is.

End of the day I'd much rather the system worked than have to get heavy with them. They are sending me a new meter and sensor so continuing beta testing is no problem. Besides it was quite cool scanning in the middle of a meeting this afternoon.

 

[Emmotha]

Besides it was quite cool scanning in the middle of a meeting this afternoon.

Yup I agree! I scanned in the middle of giving a presentation last week. Avoided a hypo which could have made a boring presentation rather more interesting

 

[igmr]

Yup I agree! I scanned in the middle of giving a presentation last week. Avoided a hypo which could have made a boring presentation rather more interesting

I did have a bit of a giggle when I realised that I had quickly wrapped up a so called 'important' sales meeting to slope off and check out the scan with a finger prick. I think the Libre is taking over my life.

 

[smidge]

Yup I agree! I scanned in the middle of giving a presentation last week. Avoided a hypo which could have made a boring presentation rather more interesting

Some of my work colleagues call it my barcode reader. When I knocked the sensor off my arm at work the other week, my colleague said 'Oh no! An unidentified Smidge in the bagging area.' LOL.

Smidge

 

[tim2000s]

Hummmm. Humble pie time I think. Having had a great experience thus far with little settling in time needed, with two days of life left, my sensor decided this evening to do something rather odd...

I tested post eating and got 8.9 and an up arrow. Ten mins later, this had jumped to 9.4 and an up arrow, so I finger pricked. 8.1. Then a further 10 mins later, 10.5 on the scan with a vertical up arrow and 8.5 on the finger prick, followed by 10 mins later and the scan is back at 8.8 and a horizontal arrow with a finger prick at 8.9.

Now that's certainly an odd set of results, but here's the thing. I had injected a couple of units of insulin into the same arm as the sensor is attached to. Now this shouldn't do anything to the readings specifically, but.. I am slightly suspicious.

Certainly a very odd behaviour but it seems to be back behaving again now.

 

[robert72]

I'm sure I read a caution somewhere about injecting near the sensor. Might have been in the manual (which I still haven't finished reading yet).