Category: Current Status

Not only is the Dexcom doing a great time most of the time (right now I’m wearing an wonky sensor), but it is also does a lot of other good things.

First, it is an interesting feed back loop.  One thing I’ve noticed, and I’m not the only one, is that the better you manage your diabetes, the better the Dexcom works.  Thus, just by using the Dexcom alone, you tend to manage your blood sugar better.  Someone needs to do a clinical trial and see if we’re right.

Second, it opens up some interesting conversations.  Mostly on the line of, is your diabetes THAT bad.  No, it isn’t.  I just like to see the data and manage it better.

Remember, it opened up a conversation between my self and my student I’ve posted about.

Yes, it’s the first week of school.  The kiddos reported on Monday.

I am sure I would have survived without Dexcom but it’s sure made a huge difference.  I don’t have to stop and finger stick during class.  Just pull out Dexcom and dose.  Yes, I’m dosing completely off of Dexcom now and only finger sticking when it tells me to.

I just did a reset after 7 days.  I’ve got an extra sensor in my emergency pack just in case.

I also have plenty of test strips and my meter, again, just in case.

My class size is much larger this year.  It’s a good and a bad thing.  So far, my 5th and 6th classes are the fullest. 

Also my AP program is really different.  I told the Dean that she could combine my PreAP and AP classes.  Well, she also combined a few students into my CS.  I’m definitely going to take a look at 6th period since the room is full of regular students and it looks like I have only one AP student and he didn’t take PreAP.  I’d like to move him into 2nd or 3rd period.

I’m also working hard to get rid of all the 9th graders from Web Mastering.  We cover way too much material for 9th graders.  And this year, I’m going to be evil and push very hard to get everything done.

All in all a very busy week so far, but thank goodness for Dexcom.

I just removed Sensor 2.  Or did it remove itself?  Basically the adhesive failed.

It lasted for 12 days.  Costing $5.00 a day for those of you keeping up.  Worth the cost.  Yep!

It was extremely accurate.  I’m very pleased with the results I’ve been having.  In fact, I’m doing to finger sticking only when the Dexcom  SeVen asks for one.

I actually would have liked this sensor to last one more day — I’m doing an agility trial this weekend, BUT the good news is that my Friday, Dexcom should be extremely accurate again.

So I put this sensor in on 8/10.  I was a bit disconcerted to see that it was running a tad off of the One Touch but put it out of my head.  Had a lot of other stuff going on.

So tonight, I did dog agility (yeah in this heat), and our instructor brought us Italian chocolate (well, chocolate purchased in Italy).  I are one piece during Maggie’s class and one during Marcie’s — a bit after, Dexcom goes off.  Which freaked my instructor out, and sure enough I’m running high.

I go ahead and keep going without a correction, because I’m doing a fair amount of running.  Check afterwards, and Dexcom said I was at 258.  One Touch said I was at 253.  Can’t get much better than that.

And yes, I’ve been dosing off of Dexcom most of the time, have cut down my finger sticks drastically, but do check if Dexcom doesn’t feel right.  I’ve also been extremely aggressive on my control, I’ve set my pump to alarm at 1 hour.  I eat, reset my pump with a 0 bolus at 1 hour, then check every hour and correct off of Dexcom.  That has been helping to solve the problem where I’ve been going off on high excursions — causing the high A1C.

I’ve also made another change.  I was not bolusing for meals and then walking on the treadmill.  It did prevent lows but was causing the escalating highs.  Now, I bolus for half the carbs, and then correct.  I’m not having to correct as much (often not at all), and no more of the excursions.

Of course, I’ll have to find another plan in a few months.

I woke up this morning, checked my receiver and it had the “no sensor” display on it. Looked at my transmitter/sensor, and sure enough it had come off in the night.

So I managed to make my first sensor last 15 days. Not bad. Makes the cost come to $4.33 per day.

Also Dexcom saved my butt twice from lows yesterday, so I’m doubly pleased.

I’ve just gotten my worst A1C since pumping.  7.7.  Man that sucks.

Doctor is attributing the travel and related stress.  I hope he is right.

He also noticed, without me pointing it out, that I’ve been high a lot of evenings and am still high in the morning.  We tweaked some bolus settings.  I’ve working on better strategies — I was going low a lot in the evenings when I first started working out with Fitness4Diabetics but as I shift my walking to earlier in the day, I’m not doing that any more.

I also got “approval” to use the Dexcom rather than finger sticks.  Okay, I’ve been using the Dexcom to decide if I was in range, and then used the One Touch to get the actually reading to calculate the correction.  I’m going to start skipping that step when the Dexcom is looking good.

Some other medical news — had my second Synvist shot today.  And my knees passed the school stair test — I went down the stairs the best I’ve had in years.  Man those are steep stair cases.

I have also managed to walk for 60 minutes per day every day for almost two weeks.  I’m slowly moving my schedule towards a school schedule since I report in 2 weeks.

The good news is that the rest of my values were good.

I sweated off my insertion set last night and figured I had sweated off the transmitter too, but it is still on and still giving good data.

I did too much yesterday, got out of the truck really really stiff, but I’m really no worse today than I usually am after dog agility.

Ran into my endo while I was getting my blood drawn and showed him the Dexcom. He was impressed.