I’m Christel from Diabetes Strong in this video
I’ll be letting in on the biggest Dexcom mistakes I made
when I started wearing my Dexcom CGM
I’ve been wearing a Dexcom CGM for about six years now
I started out with the Dexcom G5 and now I wear the Dexcom G6
and I’ve made a lot of mistakes nothing has been life threatening but
there's been enough mistakes at one point I
I was seriously considering no longer wearing the device
so let me walk you through four Dexcom mistakes that I’ve made
so that you can learn from me and not have to make the same mistakes
the first mistake is inserting the CGM sensor right before bed
most sensors actually all the sensors
are somewhat inaccurate at least for the first 24 hours
and I can almost guarantee you that in if you insert it right before bedtime
you'll be listening to CGM alarms all night rather than just sleeping
not a lot of sleep that's not a concept that I’m a fan of
and I’ve inserted it right before bed more than once not thinking it through
only to have the alarms going all night long
it's been so bad the several times I’ve actually ended up
turning off my phone completely because that's where I get all my alerts
just to silence the device
you can of course silence your alerts and I think that's a really really good tip
if you're going through alarm fatigue or if it's keeping you up all night
however you cannot turn off the 55 mg/dl urgent low alarm
and I wouldn't necessarily want to turn that off
I want to be alerted if it's actually that low
however when I get those all night blaring alarms
it's usually the 55 urgent low or even just low when it's below that,
that's blaring all night even though my blood sugars are actually in a healthy range
so to conclude on this
I would not recommend that you start your CGM right before going to bed
the second mistake I’ve made is to insert the sensor
when my blood sugars are fluctuating so for example
I do not recommend that you insert your sensor right after a meal
so when you insert it right after a meal your blood sugars will fluctuate and that
seems to really confuse the sensor and for me it can become really
inaccurate for a longer time it just seems like it takes
a little longer to calibrate I found that I have the most
accurate sensors when I insert the sensor in the afternoon so that would be a few
hours after lunch and a few hours before dinner
so I’ll insert the sensor and I won't eat for at least two hours
which is the sensor warm-up period
the third mistake I made was to chase my high and lows
so when I first started wearing my CGM I would react to
every higher low that I saw on my device and basically that led to an intense
daily blood sugar roller coaster
so whenever I would see my blood sugar rise or drop I would react
without taking other things but my Dexcom into consideration
now I stop and I pause and I think through the whole scenario
so let me give you an example
let's say that my blood sugars are rising after a meal
so I see that rise on my Dexcom now I stop and I think is this actually
because I need more insulin
or is it more a question of an insulin and food timing issue
so let's say that I just had my meal I did dose the right amount of insulin
right but I might not have to pre-bolused long enough
or it might be a high glycemic meal
so I’ll see it shoot up on my Dexcom
but I do have the right amount of insulin on board
so just thinking that through means I won't inject more
because I technically know that I have enough insulin on board
I just need to wait it out
and let the insulin do its job and I’ll see the blood sugar come down again
back in the beginning of wearing my Dexcom I
would not have thought through the whole scenario I was just seeing the blood sugar
shoot up and I would have reacted by throwing more insulin at it
that would have led to low blood sugar
which then need to be treated with carbohydrates
and there comes the roller coaster
another example is when I see my blood sugars dropping rapidly
in the beginning, I would freak out
honestly, I would freak out and I would eat something right away
now I have a bit more of a relaxed approach to it
so let's say I have a blood sugar of 100 mg/dl, 120, and an arrow down
in the beginning, I would freak out now I think through the whole scenario
so am I dropping because of activity is it a food meal timing issue
is it the type of insulin that I’m taking so what's actually going on
what I’m referring to when I talk about different types of insulin
is specifically that I use a rapid-acting insulin called Afrezza it's inhaled insulin
I’ll leave a link to that up here if you want to learn more
and it just works way faster than your injected rapid-acting insulins
that means I often see two arrows down
but I won't go low, it's just because it works that fast in the system
obviously it won't work if you're at 80 mg/dl with two arrows down
or if you feel low
but generally I won't react I won't eat more
just based on the arrows on my Dexcom I’ll always stop thinking through and if
I’m positive that I have too much insulin on board for whatever activity I’m doing
or for the food I’ve eaten if I have too much insulin
board then I’ll eat more this strategy of thinking
through the whole scenario not only focusing on the Dexcom readings
has really helped me get off the block sugar roller coaster
and quite frankly
getting off that roller coaster is one of the reasons why I no longer want to throw
my Dexcom out the window
the fourth and final mistake I want to highlight here is that in the beginning,
I was relying a 100%
on my CGM readings big mistake
the two main reasons why that was a big mistake
was that one as I mentioned up front the Dexcom sensor or any other of the sensors
can be fairly inaccurate especially the first 24 hours
so doing any dosing decisions just 100% based on the Dexcom can be a big mistake
you should still do the finger sticks
and secondly you should not rely only on your CGM whenever your blood sugars are
fluctuating, so that means if they're rising
or they're dropping fairly quickly think about it like this
your CGM is measuring your blood sugars in the fluid
the fluid is about 10 minutes behind the actual blood
furthermore Dexcom only updates its readings every five minutes
that means you can technically be looking at a reading on your Dexcom
that's 15 minutes behind your blood sugar so again when blood sugar is fluctuating
it might not have caught up if your blood sugar is a
stable that's a different story so I always bring my meter with me
and I probably rely on my Dexcom about 80% of the time
but I’m very conscious about the fact
that I cannot be relying on it 24/7 100% of the time
and those were the four biggest mistakes I’ve made
when it comes to my Dexcom CGM
hopefully, now that you know what I know you won't make the same mistakes
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