CoPilot

Making an informed decision is all about having the right information at your disposal. Just like any other important decision, when it comes to Diabetes, the more information the better.  Right now my data consists of my log book. Pencil to paper, everything that I can fit into those tiny squares. Any additional interpretation of those numbers requires some additional method of data analysis and some intelligence. Right now data analysis seems like a less intimidating task.

I recently purchased a special data cable for Bart Allen. One side of this cable is your standard USB connection, the other looks like an audio jack, but it goes into my meter (FreeStyle Flash). I have USB-USB, USB-mini USB and USB-micro USB cables, but no…this one was extra special. A few days later the cable arrived in the mail – oh happy days. Downloading the management software, CoPilot Health Management System took about as long as I needed to fill out some basic information on the Abbott website. I’m not sure why I had to prove that I have Diabetes and am using one of their products to download their software but again, small potatoes for what I’m hoping to accomplish.

As of this post I’ve had less than an hour with the software but I can tell that this is infinitely better than the excel spreadsheet I was toying around with. Using software that is designed specifically for blood glucose analysis makes for a much happier Chris…until I see the results.

The Goose to my Maverick

From what I can tell, I can generate charts that show a standard time line over the course of the past 3 days, past 7 days, and up to the past couple of months depending on how much data I have. I’m not sure if each upload is saved and each subsequent upload is appended to the existing data. I hope I can keep I long-term running count of how my numbers are looking. Assuming I figure this out it would be nice to see some progress over a couple of months.

Additionally I can break down blood glucose by time. I can set markers for pre-breakfast, post-breakfast, pre and post-lunch, pre and post-dinner, bed time and sleep. Registered tests will fall into one of those categories over the course of a 24 hour period. The chart puts each result in its proper time slot and is compared against a standard range of blood glucose. Each range is color coded, very low, low, normal, high, very high. (I’m not going to get into defining “normal”, so don’t bother). The ranges for blood glucose are also adjustable beyond the default based on my requirements. As I hopefully continue to gain more control over my blood glucose, I can tighten my target ranges to help further analysis and maybe keep my motivation up.

I’m a results oriented kind of guy. Seeing a tangible finished product does wonders for my psyche. Even in the case of Diabetes, if I can see what my numbers look like over time, in theory this should help me find my more troublesome areas and help identify where I need to improve my control. Sure, there are lots of variables that go into each blood glucose test, but if this software will help me get a clearer picture of what I’m doing right and what I need to improve on…why not?

Actually I think the more important question is why didn’t I try this sooner?

Thank you Dayle for sending me this link.