Continuous Glucose Monitoring

It's been 6 weeks since Sara was diagnosed and came home from the hospital.

6 weeks...

How can it be only 6 weeks? It feels like a lifetime ago. It's hard to remember what it was like to just go through life without carb counting,  insulin shots,  highs,  lows, and all the other things that go with having a T1d in the family. This disease doesn't just affect the one who has it, but the whole family. Decisions are made differently, because everything has, to some degree, be planned.

One way we are hoping to help Sara live a more normal life and not have to be constantly testing her blood glucose, is to have her on a continuous glucose monitor (cgm). We have chosen Dexcom as our cgm.

A cgm is a device that is placed on the skin and a wire is inserted under the skin. This wire reads the interstitial fluid in the skin and is converted to a blood glucose number. This number is transmitted to a receiver or iPhone that Sara will be carrying on her. The iPhone can then put this information into the cloud where Daniel and I can use an app to retrieve those numbers. The device takes a reading every 5 minutes. So we will be getting 288 readings a day. It will also tell us if her numbers are rising, falling, or staying steady and how fast they are rising or falling. This information will be helpful in so many ways. With the numbers being in the cloud, Daniel has the ability to check her numbers while at work or on the road. She can go out for the day and I can keep tabs on her.

There have been nights where Sara has been in the low 100's at bedtime. Great, she's in her target numbers. But, is that number continuing to drop from dinner, or is she starting to go back up. We don't know unless we test her again in another hour or so. With the Dexcom, we will be able to see the trend of that number and treat, or not treat accordingly.

During the night we get up with Sara at 2am. This requires an alarm to go off, us to get out of bed, go upstairs, get out her monitor, test her, give her a correction if needed, and go back to bed with the hopes of falling back to sleeping a timely manner. Chances are we also disturbed the sleep of the other girls in the room. With the Dexcom, the alarm will go off at 2 am, but we can reach for our phone and check her number. If it's good, back to sleep we go. If not we can go upstairs and give the correction or treat a low.

Another benefit of the device is that we can set alarms for her highs and lows. So if she hits these numbers between meals, during the night, while playing, or just doing normal activities, we can be alerted and treat as necessary.

Today was the big day of Sara's Dexcom arriving. Insertion went well and painless, so that is a big bonus. Here she is with it ready to go.

There is a 2 hour warm up before we can start seeing her numbers. After the 2 hour warm up, we calibrate her glucose monitor with the Dexcom and we start to see a trend graph start. Here is the last 6 hours of her numbers. How awesome is this information!

A Whole New Language

Having a t1d (type 1 daughter) has taught us many new things. One of these is a whole new language. Here is one of the Slang "dictionaries" I have used to learn and understand this new language.

http://www.sixuntilme.com/blog-mt2/blog_images/Q12011/SUM_Diabetes_Terms.pdf

Some of my favorites:

D-Mama: the mother of a child with T1D, who is not afraid to take the disease head-on. While D-Mamas may sometimes appear frightening to non D-Mamas, they are loveable and fearless. Never be afraid to approach them, as they carry valuable diabetes information (and glucose tablets)!

Rollercoastering: when blood sugar starts out high, then goes low … then goes high … and then goes low. Basically, your blood-sugar level alternates everywhere outside the normal range.

Diablandic: Sugar-free or diabetes marketed food that tastes horribly bland

Poker: Lancing device, also known as a “pokey.”

Real People Sick: The differentiation between bloodsugar issues and the common cold. Phrase slips out most often when the diabetic admits to not feeling well and must specify that it is not bloodsugar related.

Sleep-Drinking: The ability to consume juice while still actually asleep.

Sugar Baby: A name to call someone with diabetes, such as your daughter.

S.W.A.G. Bolus: Scientific, Wild Assed Guess bolus. This is where you use more instinct thandata to bolus an unexpected or uncalculated meal.

Time to Change the Lancet: Defined as any time when you change the batteries in your smoke detector, reset your clocks, or when the lancet starts to rust.

YDMV: “Your diabetes may vary.” Phrase used as a caveat after explaining how something affects your diabetes. ex. “Pizza makes my blood sugar spike, but ydmv.”