Life with Libre

gavin86 said:

I'm getting interested in the blucon... I guess the novelty of Libre is over.

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Hi, Gavin, I've used the blucon a bit more now, on the last four days of my current sensor. It's been fairly close to bg test, often more so than the reader. The blucon people came up with their own algorithm, so the different readings are down to that.

I think I've used it now for ten days or so across 2 sensors and apart from a couple of real glitchy days it's been ok.

To be honest, although the libre is great, that whole business of having to take the reader out and actually scan it is seeming a bit passe now! It's maybe just the novelty value, but it's kinda groovy just looking at my phone once in a while. It also shows the last result in the notification window. The graph ain't that great as it expands and contracts to have lower and upper limits set to your lowest and highest readings over the time period, so if you've been between say 4 and 6.5 over three hours it's still going to look really stabby even though 2.5 is not a big shift.

However, the history tab is surprisingly useful, just a list of readings taken every five minutes. Let's face it, even keen scanners don't scan every five minutes, whereas this does and then lists them. I'm finding that just looking at a list of numbers is giving me a better picture of how I'm moving than the scanner graph does.

All in all, if you like new toys to play with, it's worth a punt, although I've certainly not got to the stage yet where I'd bolus from it as I was doing with the reader.

Oh dear, definitely a nightmare morning. Was this with the reader or your phone?

maglil55 said:

Mobile Android App although I am actually thinking about getting the Reader. No 3 sensor is also measuring ridiculously low. It reckons I'm at 3.1 whereas finger stab has me at 5.7. I'll give it a couple of days as normally I apply 2 days before activation to give it a chance to settle. So I reckon I'll be stabbing for a couple of days at least. A bit disconcerting seeing these red low blood sugar warnings when I know I am fine.

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Could it be an error with the phone/app rather than the sensor - the one that committed suicide?

On my 3rd sensor now, pretty much accurate like the first. I'm happy .

I will keep thinking about blucon... not sure.

Bled a bit with this third on insertion... no big deal, but I was surprised how much blood can come from such a tiny hole.

How often do you charge your reader. I am in Germany at the moment and it has gone from full to switch off empty in 24 hours. Changing the charger in case that is the issue. And linked to charge how often do you scan?

I rarely charge mine with the charger, but the reader is plugged into my PC via USB once a day when I am looking at my graphs etc. I scan many, many times a day. The only time I do charge it is before I put it away for a period (I am a part time user). I've never had a problem.

Thanks I think I will try to charge daily, it was a nasty shock when it didn't turn on.

I tend to only download the data when the battery is showing low - which is about every 10 days or so.

Presumably the battery life is going to vary with number of scans, number of prick tests (using Libre), and number of times you look at the other screens and data, but I wouldn't expect it to die in less than a week.

So you may have a duff battery, or the charger, as you suggested.

Going to keep an eye on it as in the USA in 3 weeks so will get a new reader of this looks dodgy

cott97 said:

Going to keep an eye on it as in the USA in 3 weeks so will get a new reader of this looks dodgy

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Contact Abbott. They may replace it for free.

Bought BNIB from eBay so I doubt it but may ask. So far it seems to be behaving today....

Scott-C said:

Hi, Gavin, I've used the blucon a bit more now, on the last four days of my current sensor. It's been fairly close to bg test, often more so than the reader. The blucon people came up with their own algorithm, so the different readings are down to that.

I think I've used it now for ten days or so across 2 sensors and apart from a couple of real glitchy days it's been ok.

To be honest, although the libre is great, that whole business of having to take the reader out and actually scan it is seeming a bit passe now! It's maybe just the novelty value, but it's kinda groovy just looking at my phone once in a while. It also shows the last result in the notification window. The graph ain't that great as it expands and contracts to have lower and upper limits set to your lowest and highest readings over the time period, so if you've been between say 4 and 6.5 over three hours it's still going to look really stabby even though 2.5 is not a big shift.

However, the history tab is surprisingly useful, just a list of readings taken every five minutes. Let's face it, even keen scanners don't scan every five minutes, whereas this does and then lists them. I'm finding that just looking at a list of numbers is giving me a better picture of how I'm moving than the scanner graph does.

All in all, if you like new toys to play with, it's worth a punt, although I've certainly not got to the stage yet where I'd bolus from it as I was doing with the reader.

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I've heard that the libre is great but is it really worth the money as the NHS won't pay this cost??

Scott-C said:

Hi, Gavin, I've used the blucon a bit more now, on the last four days of my current sensor. It's been fairly close to bg test, often more so than the reader. The blucon people came up with their own algorithm, so the different readings are down to that.

I think I've used it now for ten days or so across 2 sensors and apart from a couple of real glitchy days it's been ok.

To be honest, although the libre is great, that whole business of having to take the reader out and actually scan it is seeming a bit passe now! It's maybe just the novelty value, but it's kinda groovy just looking at my phone once in a while. It also shows the last result in the notification window. The graph ain't that great as it expands and contracts to have lower and upper limits set to your lowest and highest readings over the time period, so if you've been between say 4 and 6.5 over three hours it's still going to look really stabby even though 2.5 is not a big shift.

However, the history tab is surprisingly useful, just a list of readings taken every five minutes. Let's face it, even keen scanners don't scan every five minutes, whereas this does and then lists them. I'm finding that just looking at a list of numbers is giving me a better picture of how I'm moving than the scanner graph does.

All in all, if you like new toys to play with, it's worth a punt, although I've certainly not got to the stage yet where I'd bolus from it as I was doing with the reader.

Click to expand...

Scott-C said:

Hi, Gavin, I've used the blucon a bit more now, on the last four days of my current sensor. It's been fairly close to bg test, often more so than the reader. The blucon people came up with their own algorithm, so the different readings are down to that.

I think I've used it now for ten days or so across 2 sensors and apart from a couple of real glitchy days it's been ok.

To be honest, although the libre is great, that whole business of having to take the reader out and actually scan it is seeming a bit passe now! It's maybe just the novelty value, but it's kinda groovy just looking at my phone once in a while. It also shows the last result in the notification window. The graph ain't that great as it expands and contracts to have lower and upper limits set to your lowest and highest readings over the time period, so if you've been between say 4 and 6.5 over three hours it's still going to look really stabby even though 2.5 is not a big shift.

However, the history tab is surprisingly useful, just a list of readings taken every five minutes. Let's face it, even keen scanners don't scan every five minutes, whereas this does and then lists them. I'm finding that just looking at a list of numbers is giving me a better picture of how I'm moving than the scanner graph does.

All in all, if you like new toys to play with, it's worth a punt, although I've certainly not got to the stage yet where I'd bolus from it as I was doing with the reader.

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I've come into this conversation a little late, it seems. What is the blue con and where can I get it? Can you provide a web link, please?

@gardener612 "BluCon for FreeStyle Libre" >> https://www.ambrosiasys.com/

gardener612 said:

I've come into this conversation a little late, it seems. What is the blue con and where can I get it? Can you provide a web link, please?

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It's a small transmitter which sits on top of the libre sensor, reads it every 5 minutes and blutooths the reading to a phone running an app called Linkblucon.

If you scroll back through this thread, starting from page 11 onwards there's some posts between me and beccyb, who has also got one, comparing notes.

There's a few pics at posts #202, 252 and 257 to give an idea of size and what the app looks like.

You'll gather from the posts that results have been kind of mixed! Very accurate sometimes, then a couple of dubious days, but in fairness, it's such a small start up company that I think they kind of rushed it to market after a lot of delays to keep the pre-orderers happy before ironing out some teething problems, and all the readings I've had since they did a bugfix update to the app have been pretty good, but I've only worn it for a total of 10 days split across a couple of sensors.

It's only been on the market for a few weeks, the company which makes it Ambrosia Systems is a tiny little start up (although the founder used to work for Abbott who make the libre), and, as with all start ups there is no guarantee they'll stay in business.

The main reason I'm interested in it is that they say that they'll be updating the app so that does hypo/hyper alerts. But they won't be drawn on when that might be.

All in all, it's an experiment more than anything else, but if they can get the alerts sussed ( and don't go out of business!) the one off cost of £110 plus £25 import tax is worth looking at, but just remember it's early days with it.

seanmorris3466 said:

I've heard that the libre is great but is it really worth the money as the NHS won't pay this cost??

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There are numerous reasons why I like libre and think it is worth the money, but the main one, without a doubt, is that I can see when my blood sugar is dropping and do something about it long before it gets anywhere near being hypo, instead of being caught off guard and having to sort the hypo after it has happened. Being able to predict the future and change it in that way is priceless.

Overall, it makes it way easier than strips to steer and keep sugars in range, proactively, rather than reacting after they've already gone out of range.

The price works out daily at about the same price of a return tram ticket to work or a newspaper and coffee, and I'm willing to pay that to have a full motion picture of what's happening in more or less real time instead of snapshots from strips.

Of course, I would prefer if it was on the NHS. If you think back over the history of monitoring, colour changing strips were seen as cutting edge and costly when they were first introduced (thirty years ago, I was told to cut mine in half they were so expensive to make them last twice as long!), then they seemed old fashioned compared to cutting edge and costly electronic meters, and so it goes: meters are now taken for granted and for a while cgm/libre will be regarded as the new cutting edge and costly thing in the same way that colour changing strips and then meters were in their day when they were the new kid on the block, and before we know it, cgm/libre will become as commonplace as meters and no-one will remember why there was so much discussion about whether they should be on the NHS. I think it is inevitable that they will be one day. It's just the way these things work. When that will be, though, I really don't know.

PS: for any youngsters here scratching their heads about what colour changing strips are, and might want to go a bit retro old-school T, google Glucoflex-R ! I went on a bit of a nostalgia trip a while back and got a couple of packets, 8 quid a shot. Brought bsck so many memories hoping to see a nice light tan/light sky blue develop after a minute for a decent 6! Surprisingly close to meter too.