Hey, i have no such experience. Been using the libre for a few years now but never expired because of a low.
Once it stopped working after 1 week of use and gave some sort of an error msg.
I ended up contacting Abbot and they kindly sent a replacement sensor next day free of charge. I also got a prepaid envelope to send back to them the failed sensor for testing. And they needed the lot number. So since that i keep the information peel from the sensor in case I'd need to send it back.
And another thought that came up reading your story : didn't you think of lowering your insulin dose before night time to avoid hypos ..?
At the risk of Too Much Information:
Yes, Abbot replace sensors, but it is absolute guesswork when a replacement will arrive (previous email notification was on a Sunday, arrived Thursday, latest email notification was on a Saturday, arrived Tuesday - and because of my wake/sleep patterns and another injury, being able to get up for a delivery, and to wait - even within the 1 hour Post Office time slot - is a pain in the proverbial.
As to changing my insulin doses - I have always been
too keen (paraphrasing my consultants) to change them. I do not recognize the concept of 'night time insulin' - I take tresiba basal at, or after 10pm because that is the time of day I'm likely to be awake. Because of problems with sleep (spasms from the other injury) it often takes me a very long time to get to sleep, and when I
have to get up in more normal timescales it wrecks me for a few days. More to the point, I typically go to bed around 4a.m. and get up between 10 and 16 hours later so often I only have two meals per day, plus the (large) amount of 'supper' I eat before going to bed (I've had to eat before bed since the first night I was diagnosed, more than 30 years ago) and/or snacks during my time in bed when I get an alarm - did I mention I've developed a dextrosol habit since I went onto the sensor ?
My experience of the sensor readings compared to BM (with a non-Abbot test meter) is that they often over-read when above 10, and under-read when below 4 which is probably why DVLA requires BM readings if below 5. Often, the reported peak after a meal is in the 15-20 range, although I note that typically one or two actual readings each day are somewhat above the graph line when I look later.
Sometimes it takes a
very long time for the reported level to drop below 10, and if I'm not going out then I prefer to wait for the level to drop. But when it does drop it can drop quickly which is inconvenient if I'm waiting to cook a meal.
When I last saw a consultant he recommended I should wait 30 minutes between injecting bolus and eating. With these sensors I can see that what I had learned about how levels change after injecting looks more like "lies to children" (for those who have read the Science of Discworld books) - looking at the readings I see them bouncing around even while I'm sleeping, and sometimes I need to eat within 15 minutes of injecting.
Summary - I had no need of sensors until after it was generally recommended by the NHS, at which point my GP practice was worried about possible night time hypos since I live on my own. Glad it works for you, I've got a consultant appointment within a month's time, will see what the Dr says.
