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Libre Alarms

A

Alistair Wood

Active Member
Hi,
Has anyone else noticed that the Freestyle Libre alarms do not always work? Typically I will set an alarm (or a Check Glucose) for 1am in the morning and expect to be woken up by it, but it just doesn't work. This is bad news for me, as I need to do this every night.
I asked Abbott to send me a replacement scanner, which they did, and Lo and Behold the same thing occurs on the replacement one. So I suggested to them that it is a system fault. It's as if the scanner/meter goes into slumber mode and just doesn't wake up (perhaps it needs an alarm - JOKE)
When I do wake up at say, 4am, I press the button on the scanner wake it up and do a test, and surprise surprise the alarm does sound! A bit late!
If I have set multiple alarms (you can tell I was getting desperate) then when I switch on at 4am, the alarms I have set for 1am, 2am and 3am go off one after another. Duh!
The agent on the phone took ages to appreciate what I was saying, and kept on suggesting that I was not setting the alarms correctly....
Just to add, sometimes (infuriatingly so) the alarm does work.... why? I wish I knew.

Ali Wood,
Yorkshire
 
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So you’re using just a sensor with the Abbot provided scanner? You confused me a bit there where you said you pressed the button on the sensor, I thought you’d bought an add on.

How are you setting alarms? I can’t find any facility on my scanner to do that. I have just the sensors and the proprietary scanner as well, although I do have the official app on my phone to use as a backup scanner.
 
Proprietary scanner has a picture of a bell at bottom left hand corner of screen. You can set different types of alarms. You have not seen this before?
 
Alistair Wood said:
Proprietary scanner has a picture of a bell at bottom left hand corner of screen. You can set different types of alarms. You have not seen this before?
Click to expand...
Oh good grief, I’ve not noticed that in a year of using the flippin’ thing :wideyed: Been too busy with the little gingerbread man in the opposite corner! It’s very pale grey on mine. I keep mine on silent anyway, so when I’ve used the one or two hour alarm in the food logging window, it’s just vibrated. Perhaps I didn’t notice the bell because it’s just not something I’d use.

I’d suggest using the alarm on your phone or an alarm clock instead, if you really need to wake up at that time to check your BG. Can I ask why you do this? Are your sugars unstable overnight? I’m genuinely curious here. If I wake naturally for whatever reason in the night I scan as a matter of course, but I’d never deliberately disturb a good night’s sleep unless I was sick or especially concerned about rapidly changing levels.
 
My sugars are fairly stable, but I don't always wake up if I'm hypo, so I have to test once or twice a night as a precaution. The reason for using the scanner alarm is that it means I only have to pick up the scanner, not the scanner and a watch or clock.
 
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