Continuous Glucose Monitoring, any experiences?

[Riley Blue]

O/H has recently gone on to insulin for her Type 2 diabetes and has been prescribed CGM sensors during the changeover period from Glimepiride.

She's having problems with the sensors; two out of three have developed faults and the other (put on by the diabetic clinic at the hospital) fell off.

Another issue is sensor accuracy. She has the app on her phone so is able to take regular readings, sometimes during the night when they are significantly lower than during the day; last night 2.1 mmol. She checked with her 'pricky kit', using her Tee 2 blood glucose meters (she has two and used them both) and they showed 5.8 and 5.9 mol.

I was prepared to pay for her to continue with the sensors after her prescription ends but, based on her experience so far, wonder if they're as worthwhile as their recent TV advertising claims. Any thoughts from other users?

[gus607]

2.2 mm/ol I'm surprised she wasn't having hypo's. Sounds like her monitor is faulty.

[How u doing]

Which system?

I'm on libre 2, I find it very good. The app and phone interface is poor but the reader they supply is small, neat and dandy.

I always wear them as prescribed, back of arm. Anywhere else and they're prone to knocking.

[Riley Blue]

She's had Libre 2 sensors but the most recent have been just 'Libre'. Back of upper arm is where they've been put but she's very slim, she weighs 54kg, though I can't see that being an issue.

It's the accuracy (or lack of) of them that concern us most. I'm not happy to pay for them if they're inaccurate.

[NorthDave]

My Mum uses them as a type 1 diabetic and they roughly tally with her finger prick readings. Interestingly when she was in hospital they were a world apart from the machine the hospital were using. We werent sure why. I know they work in a different way - they don't sample blood for instance - and we wondered if they responded slower than a blood test and if this counted for the anomaly.
They are a god send for my Mum so I would go back to the doctors and ask them for advice.

[mike9009]

I use Libre and it has transformed my diabetes control.

It can give erroneous readings against a finger prick. It sometimes reads a bit too high or low, but the direction of travel is always correct, so need to be careful over reacting to a reading. If going too high, I will take some insulin, then check again ten minutes later just to make sure I haven't under compensated. Similar with lows.

There is a five minute lag also, which needs accounting for sometimes. The newer Libre 2 has a far shorter lag.

[Riley Blue]

Thanks for your experiences.

O/H is going to carry on with them for now but she has spoken with two people, one a nurse at her GP surgery whose husband uses them, the other a neighbour and they both find them unreliable. Like my O/H they've both had sensors that didn't transmit readings. Maybe there has been a bad batch?

[Casa1862]

My son had a trial with the the libra and didn’t get on with it, that was the original one not newer 2. He’s on the Dexcom now and it’s much better, accuracy is better and the app has more features, no CGM is perfect but I’d rate the Dexcom fairly highly, it’s more expensive though I’d self funding.