• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

First Libre Help

Lainie71 said:
Yerp my dp definitely continues to lunchtime. Im not convinced the Libre is for me, think we may be parting company and divorcing at this rate its definitely unreasonable behaviour at the moment
Click to expand...
Oh it can be worrying. I had my first ‘compression low’ during the night, it alarmed and said my BG was 1.8 - I felt fine so finger pricked and it was 5.6, but I’ve read it can read super low if you lie on it.. so I think that’s what happened.

Mine seems very accurate now otherwise - I’m not sure how I feel about it as it has become a bit of a constant check for me
 
I’m on day 3 of my Libre trial. After a false start with a defective sensor, which Abbot replaced, it seems to be functioning fine.

I’m not sure that I trust the numbers exactly, because the finger prick tests with my bog standard meter differ - both higher & lower. But the pattern is interesting, & for me that’s the value of the experiment. For example, this morning I woke at around 3.30am in a bit of a sweat with a steaming headache. When I checked my numbers had dipped down to an unbelievably low figure, and were now rocketing up again with what appears to be a liver dump in a classic dawn phenomenon pattern. So that probably explains the sore head & the sweaty Betty bit as well.

I’m just viewing the results on LibreLink at the moment, having started the sensor off with the App. What’s the advantage in using another piece of software to get the results?
 
Yes, it is very useful to see trends.

The main reason I’m using a different app is that it monitors continuously without scanning.
 
Just trying to scan my first Libre 2 sensor. Have an NFC enabled android phone with the Libre Link App. Sensor went into my arm fine, but there is no reaction when I put my phone up to my arm. Any ideas as to why this might be happening?
 
Diablo T2 said:
Just trying to scan my first Libre 2 sensor. Have an NFC enabled android phone with the Libre Link App. Sensor went into my arm fine, but there is no reaction when I put my phone up to my arm. Any ideas as to why this might be happening?
Click to expand...
I’m not a techie and I’m apple not android, but I think the sensor works via Bluetooth. So you may need to go into the settings to see if it’s visible and manually connect it, if it’s not doing it automatically. You also need to make sure Bluetooth is enabled in the App and use the scan - the little wavy line icon - when you hold the phone up. There are also some troubleshooting bits in the App Users Guide. Good luck!
 
Thankyou, the sensor has started now. For some reason I thought it only required NFC. I enabled blue tooth and after a couple of goes it started.
 
Libre uses Bluetooth for alarms but to scan for the data you need NFC not Bluetooth.
I find the challenge with scanning with a phone is finding where the NFC receiver on the phone. Unfortunately, this varies from phone to phone but they all seem to be in the back. It takes some trial and error to work out which bit of the phone needs to be against the sensor for it to rece the NFC signal.
 
I had my Libre 2 for some time, I’ve lost count but definitely over a year. I have never heard of leaving it on for a while before activating, but that will have been because it probably hadn’t been discovered as a good idea when I first got mine. What I do do is calibrate the first few readings against my finger prick meter by using them both at the same time. (not literally, just use them one after the other of course). I find the readings get closer together over just the first few tests. I keep using both Libre and finger prick ones together until the readings settle down. Nowadays it usually only takes a few hours, not the day or so it used to with the Libre 1. usually you will find that the readings from both don’t match exactly even once the discrepancies become consistent matches, but I keep comparing for a few tests more and then try to remember that the finger prick one was reading one unit above or below the other, and act accordingly. Use the finger prick reading as the accurate one.
 
I tried using my phone to read my Libre just once. It was such a hassle that I went back to the reader.
Phone: open fold over phone case, turn on phone, unlock phone, turn on app, wave uselessly at my arm until finding the matching place where the phone reads.
Reader: take it out of pocket, press button, wave it at patch, read.
No contest as far as I can see. Let’s see what the Libre 3 brings. That is supposed to read via Bluetooth without having to scan. So long as the result can be made visible on the lock screen that would be good for me.
 
Margi1975 said:
Phone: open fold over phone case, turn on phone, unlock phone, turn on app, wave uselessly at my arm until finding the matching place where the phone reads.
Click to expand...
Why was your phone turned off? If the phone is turned off, it will not receive the Bluetooth alerts.
I understand the rest can seem a hassle but as I always have my phone with me and switched on because I use it for so much, I prefer not to ahve another thing I could lose.
 
 
I start up new sensors by scanning it immediately and the readings seem consistent with my past experience. I was told that readings would differ from finger pricking and decided that I would now rely on the sensor and forget finger pricking altogether. I am concerned mainly with the direction of travel as well as the effect of specific foods. My readings usually are between 5 and 9 but if you check too often then you are going to see variance with both higher and lower readings than you are used to in my case this can be 3.5 to more than 12.0 . The same would happen if you increased the frequency of finger pricking but we dont because it is painful whereas I am constantly swiping my phone over the sensor.
 
I have never waited at all when applying new sensors. When the old one is about to expire I put the new one on and activate it so after one hour it is giving me readings. I check this against a finger prick test and more than 95% of the time the two give comparable results. If there is a wider discrepancy than I am happy with I do another test a few hours later and almost always that is ok. One thing to bear in mind when comparing test results is that despite a value given to one decimal place the actual accuracy is far less than this. You only have to look at the range of acceptable values on your test strips when doing control tests to see this. If the test strip came in at the lower end of acceptable range and the sensor came in at the higher end of its acceptable range there would appear to be a considerable discrepancy even though both were working as they should.

I cannot comment on the libre link app as I have only ever used the scanner supplied by Abbott. Nobody has yet managed to convince me that I need a smartphone and they probably won’t either!
 
I'm T2 and used the original Libre sensors with the Libre reader/meter for a while. and I found that I actually needed up to 48 hours acclimatization before i got a sensible reading from mine - partly due to it being an "alien artefact" stuck in my arm and partly due I think to compression issues, as I slept lying on that arm. Although after 40 hours I never actually had any more scary ultra low levels. However, my sensors consistently read up to 2 points lower than my Contour meter but the patterns and trends were quite consistent.
 
I am relatively new to sensor use but used my phone to activate it when I started.
At that time the Libre reader was not available so did without.
I now have a reader that I activate the sensor with and use for alarms. I run my phone alongside so my hospital team have constant reading updates from that. Obviously that means my phone doesnt show alarms but that hasn't been an issue as I keep the meter with me anyway and have that.
It does mean I can switch my phone off at night to get an undisturbed night's sleep.
I wasnt aware there were issues with readings when starting the sensor so will have to double check readings when I next replace it. The advantage of using both devices is that you can do actual blood readings at the same time to add those to the mix. The data from the reader can be downloaded and merged with the LibreLink data for the Clinicians to review.
 
How do you go about getting a reader as I am after one
 
I think I’ve seen them for sale on Amazon but they seemed jolly expensive. Abbot will obviously have them too.

I quite like having the results on my phone rather than a separate device, although it would be good if the Libre link app talked to the Apple health app. Then my food & exercise notes would be all in one place, and I’d be able to scan the sensor & see the graph on my Apple Watch.
 
Lainie71 said:
Thanks I will give it a go but I don't think they issue them now
Click to expand...
They sent one to me recently, as the alarms stopped working on my phone, which lead to a night time hypo only being detected because I woke up. Fortunately we caught it in time and a hospital visit was avoided.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…