FREESTYLE LIBRE ON SALE!!!!

Dan6 said:

Thats a shame i am on the fence about ordering but i really want them as theybwould make it easier but if they are inaccurate thats disappointing

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Worth trying - you may be one of the lucky ones!

If nothing else it's a worthwhile experiment to see how you are really reacting to food - you can see all those dips and troughs for appropriate finger pricking instead of the 2 hour guesstimate.

You are hereby authorised to have a pizza or curry with the trimmings just to view the stunning BG rollercoaster on a Libre!

NikiMilligan said:

Worth trying - you may be one of the lucky ones!

If nothing else it's a worthwhile experiment to see how you are really reacting to food - you can see all those dips and troughs for appropriate finger pricking instead of the 2 hour guesstimate.

You are hereby authorised to have a pizza or curry with the trimmings just to view the stunning BG rollercoaster on a Libre!

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I do like a rollercoaster! Are you paying though as i will be broke after purchasing!

Usually with a takeaway i have an overnight hypo or im really high in the morning so if it solves that then im in!

Hi, we are retired to France now & I bought my kit over here. Get consistent next day delivery. Given that the reading is 15 minutes behind the 'now' blood-sugar I find them pretty accurate. My Accu-Chek Mobile gives mmol readings, but the readings from the French meter gives the 'continental' readings that I have to convert.

However, I've switched to a Samsung Android system so I can use the LibreLink App that I adjust to give mmol readings. I am committed to using the system until something better comes along. Find it most useful to look for patterns & adjust food and insulin accordingly. Readings have been crazily high due to having a bad cold & not going out much BUT still found close-monitoring a lot easier without all the finger-pricking. Still blood-test before each of my 4 injections (NovoRaid & Glargine) to be on the safe side. As a matter of interest my 3 year licence expired early November & my new French Licence will be for life-good!

Dan6 said:

I do like a rollercoaster! Are you paying though as i will be broke after purchasing!

Usually with a takeaway i have an overnight hypo or im really high in the morning so if it solves that then im in!

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Yup paying

Everyone has been told to give me fish for Christmas so I can get one in for dealing with first diabetic cold/flu and one just to play with for food testing!

It's a bit of a sad world where you use all your Christmas pressies for learning to control your diabetes and save the NHS a fortune preventing complications.

Even with the awful accuracy I've had it's been a worthwhile education tool. IMO NHS should fund a years worth post diagnosis and they'd save a fortune long term. It's what I'd really like - and need - but can't afford.

Libre currently doing a competition so one person only (!!!) can win a year of sensors. Wonder if the winner has to agree to advertising positively?

Hope the winner will benefit!

Thought i should provide an update on the FreeStyle Libre. I fitted it last Friday and that night and all of saturday it was hugely out from my real readings. ( approx 3 mmol below). By Sunday it was getting close and by Sunday night it was close or matching allowing for a 15-30min delay.

What i have found is that if i am busy and active it is very close and within 10 minutes of a finger prick score, if i am inactive then it is further behind. I have also seen ( not totally proven it yet) then when i was a bit dehydrated yesterday it was out, then after some water it got back in line.

It's not perfect, but is actually now proving to be fairly consistent and close to my finger prick test and i am starting to develop confidence in the results being shown.

It is an old thread, nonetheless my reply might still be relevant to somebody.
Two points:
- do not swim on the same day you started the sensor (adhesive material takes some time to adhere properly, so it will hold much better the next day!)
- I use something called "microporous tape", that looks like paper (from Boots) on top of the sensor.
Sticks easy and stays for 2 weeks (sensor duration) withstanding regular exercises, intensive sweating, 6-8 swimming sessions (short though), shower, jacuzzi..

After two weeks it looks worn but still holds.
The only downside - it leave the glue residue when you peel it off and it is not easy to wash off. May need some scrubbing.

Thanks everyone I have updated my profile

I have now finished my personal review whether to carry on using the libre having now used my tenth sensor. I had one faulty sensors and one faulty reader at start, two sensors developed a fault within days of attaching and two ripped from my arm after mere days even after putting it in an almost inaccessible place. That is a 30% fail rate and a further 20% none use problem; not great..
The biggest up side is whilst at work where it is generally inconvenient to do a finger prick test I am well versed on what is happening during the day using the sensors. I also test five times as often to try to draw a picture of what my levels are during certain tasks. I have learnt certain foods I eat react faster than others and I have changed my insulin times for varying dinners. The knowledge gained of my levels is enough to say the initial outlay was worth it but I am still on the fence to carry on.
It is a very convenient machine but far from perfect. I worry that if it becomes more standard on the NHS what financial abuse the fund would suffer. When I had a problem I had to jump through hoops to get a new sensor, and the ripped off ones went in the bin and my loss of cash. If it was free would a user persevere with the company for a renewal?

In terms of finance - funding, I use 6-7 finger pricks tests, so 4 boxes of 50 of test strips a month.
The retail cost of those is roughly 4x £27= £108. I am not sure whether NHS gets them cheaper than the retail or not.
With sensors, I would still need to get test strips just in case (e.g. when driving), I would say one box will suffice.
So 2 sensors + 1 box of test strips a month = 2x £48.5 + £27 = £124.

I say £16 difference in costs is well worth it!

Although, I am not sure how to add the costs of failed sensors to this calculations..

Did you get the failed sensors replaced by Abbott? Hat would have meant zero cost on them.

I did get the sensors replaced that went wrong "eventually" (not the ones ripped off of course) Point being for the cost I was referring to earlier it took a lot of emails and massive delays as Abbott only answer ever 48 hours. Two weeks the first one took. I think if it was free to replace them from NHS perhaps many would just open another one and not bother to chase (communication is only by Email by the way) . Maybe a system of returning them to boots for a replacement would negate this downside and I am worrying about the NHS funding for nothing The two ripped off sensors did not even add up to a weeks use and perhaps I would have simply replaced them if they had been free, So whatever the cost of initial supply the replacement was a further 40% to 45% from 3 not working and 2 being ripped off without full use. A Small scale statistic I know but I only did it for my own benefit
As for comparison my local surgery changed readers lately to all patients and said the benefit was they would only pay 2.09p for a pack of 50 test strips when everyone is on the same tester instead of their current 2,85p average across 12 different testers, saving the surgery £8,000 a month. No idea how many diabetics they have on the books.

nooneinparticular said:

I did get the sensors replaced that went wrong "eventually" (not the ones ripped off of course) Point being for the cost I was referring to earlier it took a lot of emails and massive delays as Abbott only answer ever 48 hours. Two weeks the first one took. I think if it was free to replace them from NHS perhaps many would just open another one and not bother to chase (communication is only by Email by the way) . Maybe a system of returning them to boots for a replacement would negate this downside and I am worrying about the NHS funding for nothing The two ripped off sensors did not even add up to a weeks use and perhaps I would have simply replaced them if they had been free, So whatever the cost of initial supply the replacement was a further 40% to 45% from 3 not working and 2 being ripped off without full use. A Small scale statistic I know but I only did it for my own benefit
As for comparison my local surgery changed readers lately to all patients and said the benefit was they would only pay 2.09p for a pack of 50 test strips when everyone is on the same tester instead of their current 2,85p average across 12 different testers, saving the surgery £8,000 a month. No idea how many diabetics they have on the books.

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That doesn't sound right to me - £2.09 for 50 strips that would be a HUGE discount - I could understand it maybe working out at £2.09 per day but at that price the company would be making no profit!

I am type 2 diabetic but need insulin 3 times daily plus lantus dose. Recently my readings have been rising for no apparent reason but with the difficulty I experience with finger pricking I can only test about 3 times a day. I have decided to buy a 14 day sensor and use it with my NFC mobile phone just to monitor more accurately what is happening through the day and what I am re-acting to. Currently if I wake up with a 6.3 reading in the morning and have just a small bowl of cereal together with 22 units novarapid I would expect my lunchtime reading to be between 6 - 10 however lately some days it has risen to 17 or 18 with the same food. I am hoping the sensor will help me make some sense of it but am disappointed to see that NICE have rejected the online petition and that it will not be reviewed again for two years! This is worrying because this discourages companies from developing less invasive and less painful testing methods

I live in France where blood test strips are provided free on the health care system. But the Freestyle has to be purchased on the intenet as in UK . I have tried it five times but each time given up because results never equal my Contour Next USB sometimes 20% below or above. I would like to know if Abbott have the intention of producing improved versions. My consultant is positive about using it but I have to pay.

winephil said:

I have tried it five times but each time given up because results never equal my Contour Next USB sometimes 20% below or above. I would like to know if Abbott have the intention of producing improved versions.

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Phil, I think it's important not to expect too much from it. I view it as giving me, not an answer, but more clues. If I see a 5 with downward arrow, I know it's more likely to be a 6 but that arrow makes me pay way more attention to a possible hypo. Strips just don't do that.

Meter measures capillary blood, libre measures interstitial fluid. The chances of those two entirely different fluids in different body compartments being the same are practically nil. If you get the same number it's fluke or coincidence. It's no reason for writing the libre off: there is a correlation between the two fluids. Both dexcom and medtronic require calibration on the machine. Even though libre sensors are factory calibrated, in practice I just calibrate them in my head. For people like me who have lost a lot of hypo awareness, I love getting a 30 minute heads up on possible hypos.

There's a book Wiley in vivo glucose sensing which seems to be the standard reference work in the area. Haven't bought it but there's enough in the free peek inside on Amazon to get the gist of just how damned complex this is. You're putting complex chemistry/engineering inside complex biology, the latter of which then tries to attack the former and generally frustrate what it's trying to do, yet it still gives me a good enough ballpark figure to allow me to make decisions in conjunction with strips about what to do next.

Compared to the days of colour changing strips, it's a bloody miracle.

Hello! I am wearing a sensor that is 5 and a half days out of date, still ticking and still really accurate. Is this a record? I am using Glimp to monitor it. I'm wondering if I somehow managed to restart it. No idea how if so.

gbswales said:

I am type 2 diabetic but need insulin 3 times daily plus lantus dose. Recently my readings have been rising for no apparent reason but with the difficulty I experience with finger pricking I can only test about 3 times a day. I have decided to buy a 14 day sensor and use it with my NFC mobile phone just to monitor more accurately what is happening through the day and what I am re-acting to. Currently if I wake up with a 6.3 reading in the morning and have just a small bowl of cereal together with 22 units novarapid I would expect my lunchtime reading to be between 6 - 10 however lately some days it has risen to 17 or 18 with the same food. I am hoping the sensor will help me make some sense of it but am disappointed to see that NICE have rejected the online petition and that it will not be reviewed again for two years! This is worrying because this discourages companies from developing less invasive and less painful testing methods

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Just to confirm that you are also doing blood finger prick tests to confirm the sensor is pretty accurate? There could be 3 things that are causing the rise you mention.

1) You're insulins are bad, either the novorapid or the lantus, suggest you change cartridges/get a new batch.
2) You may be coming down with an illness
3) You may have bad injection sites, do you rotate injection sites?

All the best

winephil said:

I live in France where blood test strips are provided free on the health care system. But the Freestyle has to be purchased on the intenet as in UK . I have tried it five times but each time given up because results never equal my Contour Next USB sometimes 20% below or above. I would like to know if Abbott have the intention of producing improved versions. My consultant is positive about using it but I have to pay.

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My experience, having only used it just over a week - unlike you, I find it marvellous!! Libre = having freedom, and that is just what its use gives!
It is the graphs and patterns that are the most marvellous thing about the Libre - and the ability to do numerous scans in order for the machine to build up the graphs.
Within a just over a week i have seen patterns i never knew existed even though i used 10 Contour tests a day! I feel better, not tired and exhausted by constant rises and fall in blood glucose. Yes, i was supposed to be 'reasonably well controlled', the graphs show i was not at all.

Now, we can have this valuable resource, showing things we may never have been aware of, and it is up to us to tweak things, esp pump base rates, if we are lucky enough to have one, and also meal times and bolus times - each tweak done slowly for safety - and each tweak produces more graphs! Within a week, from swings up to 13-15 mmol/l up to twice a day, and a couple of minor lows i would not have recognised, i have had one whole day flatlining within my target.
If only i could have it on our NHS, i could use it and drastically cut my strip use. I am using it short term for other health reasons.
Worry is reduced - worry re hypos I do not recognise, and worry about the sudden highs which made me feel so unwell - As long as I work with the fact that it does not measure blood.
I have had access, over the years, to a number of different blood test strips/monitors, and have discovered none give results the same as the others. But each machine is consistent with itself. Yes, for me, the Libre reads approx 0.4 mmol/l to 1.5 mmol/l less than the Contour Next, BUT the Contour Next consistently reads approx 1.0 mmol/l more than the Compact blood tester i use occasionally, and also the One Touch. I have learnt to work with each blood tester i have used, over nearly 40 years. Within 3 days i had learnt to work with the Libre - My targets are set about 1.0 mmol/l less than the Contour Next USB ones - having never used Libre before i was very careful , using 12- 14 Contour tests a day for 2 days at the same time as i did scans to check. I now have cut my strip use by half, and still going for less, as i become more confident.
I am not sure i could use it all the time due to arm soreness, but as a learning tool i have found it faultless

pinewood said:

I have never had an allergic skin reaction to any kind of adhesive or plaster in my life, but I get an awful reaction/burn when using the Libre and have to put a Compeed underneath in order to avoid it.

I tolerated the Libre fine until the 7th or 8th sensor, so those who have just started and don't have a reaction take note because it doesn't mean you won't get a reaction eventually when your body starts to rebel against it. I do wear them continuously without break so maybe having a gap between sensors would have been better.

Having said all that, Abbott announced on Twitter that they have been working on adhesive with an "extended waffle pattern for easier moisture flow and improved breathability" and that Libre sensors with this "improved adhesive" are now "making their way to customers".

I think I'll try my next one without Compeed and see how it goes. Has anyone noticed this new "waffle pattern" adhesive?

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Hi, Pinewood, I have not yet noticed that. I have phoned re my arm burning almost immediately - i am sensitive to lots and have allergies - and now have arm pain, that gets worse if i type, etc. They have already offered to give a replacement, and seem very good, telling me to remove if did not get better, sometimes it calms a bit, , i am sticking it out until i speak again to libre on monday, as i find everything else about the libre so good, as just mentioned above.
Where do you get Compeed, and how do you use it?