This week’s conversation features Jorge Valdes, Chief Technical Officer at Dexcom. Among the topics covered include Dexcom’s Apple Watch App, the future of their Share platform, integration among other mobile technology, the value of data access, and how the Nightscout community has made a difference within the walls of Dexcom. Enjoy.
For more information about Dexcom’s Continuous Glucose Monitors, visit dexcom.com.
At first, I didn’t want to use that title, because escape feels oppressive, like something is holding me back. Escaping my Dexcom data for a weekend seems inappropriate when the reality of the situation is much different for other people struggling to pay for insulin. Saying I’m escaping from this device, its protections, its information, its everything seems inappropriately arrogant.
But that’s where I found myself this weekend, taking a break from the constant stream of data and decisions that are required to live my life with diabetes.
Choices like this are carefully thought out. Whenever I make the decision to take a step back from any normal portion of my diabetes management, I tend to do so in the safety of my own home – often over a weekend. I’m not a doctor, but I figure it’s best to be in a familiar environment in case things go bad, or I decide to get back on the horse and resume my regular diabetes management methods.
Somewhat recently I updated my Instagram profile to more accurately describe the stuff I share over there.
I mostly post pictures of my Dexcom and my cats. Occasionally, I sprinkle in some other stuff…but that’s mostly it. Says a lot about me, I suppose.
But, over the past week or so, I’ve been intentionally avoiding sharing any Dexcom lines because, for the most part, I forgot how to diabetes.
It feels like the only time my blood glucose levels are “normal” is when it’s en route to an extreme high or severe low. No amount of corrections seem to do the trick, and at some point I just gave up on the idea of control and started settling “I tried”.
I’m preparing for my endocrinologist appointment in a few days and have started to download/upload/analyze data from my various diabetes devices. While I might not be able to make the most sense out of what all these numbers will mean, it will help focus some of the questions I will bring into the appointment and some of the objectives I hope to accomplish by the time the appointment is over.
I want to have a solid gameplan for how to approach my diabetes care in 2015. I need some back-and-forth to go along with the material supplied by ‘Pumping Insulin‘. I know the results of this data download and accompanying blood tests will not be stellar, but I know I have the ability to put everything in order and figure this diabetes thing out.
But when I look at the averages from my blood glucose meter, I worry. The 30 and 60 day averages indicate 2 blood glucose tests per day. Yikes. What happened to 6-10 times per day? It looks like I’ve been relying on my CGM for far more than the occasional corrective action. The FDA, and my doctors, say the blood glucose meter result is the be-all, end-all number that informs diabetes management – I haven’t been following those instructions.
Some days are good.
Some days are not as good.
But if I can learn something for the next day, that’s good, right?
A Consequence of Hypoglycemia. 