1st appointment. Libre in my future! :)

What a BRILLIANT appointment.
I am delighted for you - and i will keep my fingers crossed for you to get a Libre!

Kailee56 said:

Yipeee! Just had my first appointment with the diabetes educator. She agrees I am probably not pre-diabetic, just reactive hypoglycemic. Even with high glucose, my insulin levels were never high, more like the low end of normal.

We then discussed diet. Her advice was small meals with protein at each meal. Then the fun began. It turned into a combination education-recipe swap. She is definitely not against therapeutic Keto for more stable blood glucose and weight loss when needed. I explained how Keto did not have to mean weight loss if you have adequate fat calories. She thought it would be hard to locate recipes, until I showed her the hundreds I have saved in about 8 categories on Pinterest. We talked about bullet proof coffee, subs for noodles in soup, different pizza crusts, pancake/waffle recipes, subs for bread, ...... I had so much fun. Definitely recommended this site, more than once.

The best part? When I told her about the waking at night after having cookies (yes, I know it was a bad idea) hot and tearing up the pillows and blankets, her face actually lit up. She said I would be a perfect candidate for the Libre. She is recommending to the physician that she prescribe the Libre. Now I just have to wait for the doctor’s appointment, which will be mid-summer. Even with the wait, I am very excited. WoooHooo!!!

Now I just need to look up that app which reads every 5 minutes off the Libre, since I think a lot of my hypos happen when I am asleep.

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That is a result!
Well done you!
You have got the result you wanted and a diabetes educator, (never heard of this before!) who actually encourages how you want to treat your condition your way!

If you feel that eating small meals every few hours is getting too much, as it did for me and if you can fast, intermittently, that is what I do now!

Let us know how you get on.

Best wishes

Kailee56 said:

Thanks so much. I can hardly wait. I’ve already book marked the Nightrider site so I can get fairly continuous readings. I really want to know what happens when I sleep and when I am at work. Yes, crazy, but I am so excited. Just wish I could get it yesterday .

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The libre without extra apps already stores its information for 8 hours, you'll have continuous information. When scanning the information will be stored in your phone or reader, so it won't be lost. Your phone will also automatically send the information to LibreView where you can see what's been happening for months (years?), so the information won't be lost even when losing your phone. I guess it's the same when you use the reader rather than your phone.
So if you're fine with seeing what your sugars have been doing during the night after waking up you dont need the nightrider. As far as I understand nightrider is used to get alarms to wake you up when going too low.

Kailee56 said:

I don’t usually feel blessed, but considering how the appointment went, I do now.

I thought about and tried the frequent small meals years ago and never found them satisfying on a daily basis. At work, due to stress and never getting an actual break, the grazing approach is the only option. I’m actually looking forward to seeing what the stress does to my glucose readings. Wondering if the stress eating is emotional or metabolic.

I do intermittent and occasional extended (1-3 days) fasting and my body is fine with it. Heck, if I think my glucose reading is too low, I know all I have to do is exercise a bit, LOL Yes, we are odd ducks.

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I tried grazing but I found that my overall intake rose by half.
Even tho I have long hours at work and sometimes it is difficult to grab a couple of bites, I just don't bother. It seems easier not to eat most of the time, not feeling hungry is a blessing after all those years of raiding the cupboards and fridges, before diagnosis. I now only eat when I want, if I want and I don't have any problems with that, my health doesn't suffer, I'm full of energy!

Oh yeah, weird!

Kailee56 said:

Thanks, I didn’t realize that. So if I just scan every 8 hrs it will keep a continuous record. Just looked up the site. And I get a cute graph too! So the only real benefit of the Nightrider would be ......? Not having to carry a scanner and a phone? I think you just saved me some money. I do think the Nightrider lets you calibrate results, from what I’ve read, but I’m more interested in trends/swings/spikes. Thanks, again

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You don't need the scanner, you can just use your phone with the freestyle librelink app. And yes, you get a lot of different cute graphs with it. And if you register on libreview you get even more graphs!

Kailee56 said:

Just read through the manual, watched the various vids, and went through the FAQ area. They never say how far away the reader can be and still detect the sensor. What’s your experience? Ex: Wake up due to doorbell, go downstairs, answer bell and then end up doing some chores before going back to bed, forgot Libra on nightstand. Will the reader still have picked up the sensor readings?

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The reader (or your phone) will only pick up the information stored in the sensor when you scan the sensor. The sensor holds the information for the last 8 hours, so if you scan at least every 8 hours, your reader/phone will have all the information.

Kailee56 said:

OK. This actually sounds great. Much easier than I thought. Thanks.

Just got a call from the endo to change appt. Mentioned the Libre recommendation. Crossing fingers that I can get the prescription before mid-summer.

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You can always ask your friends to put their money together to give you a sensor as a birthday-present if you can't wait for summer. Of course that only works if you have your birthday coming up...

You can leave your reader behind when you leave the house and scan when you get back - and get info for the time you were out.

But you will only get specific numbers for the standard 15min readings.
You need to manually zap it for specifically timed readings.

Kailee56 said:

I’m in the USA. They are requiring a physician’s prescription here. Seems stupid to me, but then again, I don’t get the big bucks to make these decisions. Probably worried someone will use it on their 3 year old.

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Ah, than just stay patient and get some other wonderful presents for your birthday

Kailee56 said:

So the only real benefit of the Nightrider would be ......?

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Libre is certainly pretty good on it's own and goes a long way towards minimising hypos/hypers, understanding responses to food and so on.

But, after a while using it, you come to realise that the factory calibration in some sensors can be sketchy. Sure, it's possible to work round that by mentally calibrating in your head, but it's tiresome and will throw graphs out.

But if you use the blucon nigtrider transmitter to transmit every 5 mins to the phone app xdrip+, you can calibrate those inaccuracies out in the app, making it significantly more accurate.

Having used libre for 18 months now, and xdrip for almost 5, I simply don't trust reader readings that much, but do trust xdrip+ readings, because time and time again, provided I've calibrated correctly, the readings are significantly closer to meter than the reader.

Also, the novelty of actually having to bring the reader/phone out to physically scan the sensor wears off. Much easier just to have it sent automatically to a phone and then a smartwatch.

The graph is much better too. Libre's graph on it's own is made up of 15 min averages. Good enough for most purposes, but still a blunt tool compared to the 5 min dots which make up the xdrip+ graph.

Then there's the alerts. Libre on it's own simply won't wake you up if you start dropping low while asleep. xdrip+ will. You can set it so that it rings before you go hypo, say 4.4, to give some leeway to treat before hypo. You can set different levels for different times of day, or switch them all off if hypos aren't an issue.

You can set up a fast-drop alert, so that if you're at, say, 6 and nowhere near hypo, it'll ring and/or vibrate smartwatch if you've dropped more than a certain amount in the last 5 mins: good as a very early warning system for a possibly developing hypo. You can keep an eye on it to see if the fast drop continues.

It also makes some rough predictions based on the last twenty mins or so, and if it sees a trend developing towards a hypo, it'll tell you low predicted in x mins: again, another good early warning system.

All in all, not bad for a one-off cost of $110 plus $25 shipping!