Oh Lawrence, that's awful! I hope you will feel better soon!
Hugs,
Louis
Hugs,
Louis
Sugar & Flour Alternatives for Type II Diabetes or Low Carb Diets
- Thread starter frigilux
- Start date
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Lawrence,
I'm sorry to hear about your covid -- here's hoping things improve as fast and as easily as they can.
I'm sorry to hear about your covid -- here's hoping things improve as fast and as easily as they can.
Flash/Continous Glucose Monitors
Rich (Sudsmaster) asked about sensors you stick to your arms.
There are two kinds, continuous glucose monitors, which will even send alerts when your glucose level is too high or too low, and flash monitors, which require you to actually scan the sensor to get a reading.
I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes about 3 years ago, and a month or two into the diagnose the doctors put me on the FreeStyle Libre flash glucose monitor system. You stick the sensor on your arm and scan it several times a day. Every time you scan the sensor, it collects up to 8 hours of data. Any data past 8 hours is lost.
When I started treatment, I was put on 2 500 mg pills of Metformin in the morning and 2 in the evening.
Due to the use of the sensors, I was able to quickly lower that to one pill a day in the morning.
If you do scan before and about 2 hours after eating (which is a 2-second operation and doesn't need hand washing or disposing of sharps or blood-soaked strips), you quickly notice what foods and what quantities do to your blood glucose level.
When talking to the doctors about the data, I also learned that everyone's glucose level goes thru a lot of changes during the day, and we often get very low and very high levels, and it's normal.
That's one of the many reasons that I tell people if you can do the flash and/or continuous glucose monitoring, go for it even if it's just for a few weeks. People often freak out if their glucose level goes over 140 mg/dL (7.8 mol/L) 2 hours after eating, but the thing is that is just one measurement for a short time (just like blood pressure routinely gets on the "high side" for a minute or two during the day), one needs to take other things into consideration, like A1C, for example.
Anyway, at the very least the FreeStyle Libre has been very useful to me, although I've had some weird experiences with it (some sensors read way too low, for example, as long as you know how off it is, it's still useful because it's just a question of adding/subtracting how many units), and you still need to do a few fingerpick tests, but, on average, it's way better to use it than not.
I would like to add another couple of things: people keep talking about how the sensor is stuck to the skin, and yes, it does have a pretty strong adhesive to keep the electronics in place, but the actual sensor is *in* the skin; there's an applicator which is spring loaded, so a needle perforates the skin and inserts a small plastic tube with the sensor. This is very fast (probably faster than the finger prick for glucose monitoring) and hurts less than the finger prick, at least in my experience. The reason why it's spring loaded is because the needle doesn't stay in your skin, it's there just to insert the probe. The medical term, I believe, is "trocar", a hollow needle that carries an instrument or tube and is removed, leaving the apparatus in the skin. This is removed at the end of 10 or 14 days, depending on how long the sensor is supposed to last.
Anyway, if anyone has questions, I'd be happy to answer them. It's actually much nicer and simpler than just describing it, and if people have the opportunity to try it, I recommend it based on my experience and the experience of friends who are on the same or similar systems (most of my friends with Type I diabetes are on the continuous glucose monitors, usually the Dexcom).
Good luck!
Rich (Sudsmaster) asked about sensors you stick to your arms.
There are two kinds, continuous glucose monitors, which will even send alerts when your glucose level is too high or too low, and flash monitors, which require you to actually scan the sensor to get a reading.
I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes about 3 years ago, and a month or two into the diagnose the doctors put me on the FreeStyle Libre flash glucose monitor system. You stick the sensor on your arm and scan it several times a day. Every time you scan the sensor, it collects up to 8 hours of data. Any data past 8 hours is lost.
When I started treatment, I was put on 2 500 mg pills of Metformin in the morning and 2 in the evening.
Due to the use of the sensors, I was able to quickly lower that to one pill a day in the morning.
If you do scan before and about 2 hours after eating (which is a 2-second operation and doesn't need hand washing or disposing of sharps or blood-soaked strips), you quickly notice what foods and what quantities do to your blood glucose level.
When talking to the doctors about the data, I also learned that everyone's glucose level goes thru a lot of changes during the day, and we often get very low and very high levels, and it's normal.
That's one of the many reasons that I tell people if you can do the flash and/or continuous glucose monitoring, go for it even if it's just for a few weeks. People often freak out if their glucose level goes over 140 mg/dL (7.8 mol/L) 2 hours after eating, but the thing is that is just one measurement for a short time (just like blood pressure routinely gets on the "high side" for a minute or two during the day), one needs to take other things into consideration, like A1C, for example.
Anyway, at the very least the FreeStyle Libre has been very useful to me, although I've had some weird experiences with it (some sensors read way too low, for example, as long as you know how off it is, it's still useful because it's just a question of adding/subtracting how many units), and you still need to do a few fingerpick tests, but, on average, it's way better to use it than not.
I would like to add another couple of things: people keep talking about how the sensor is stuck to the skin, and yes, it does have a pretty strong adhesive to keep the electronics in place, but the actual sensor is *in* the skin; there's an applicator which is spring loaded, so a needle perforates the skin and inserts a small plastic tube with the sensor. This is very fast (probably faster than the finger prick for glucose monitoring) and hurts less than the finger prick, at least in my experience. The reason why it's spring loaded is because the needle doesn't stay in your skin, it's there just to insert the probe. The medical term, I believe, is "trocar", a hollow needle that carries an instrument or tube and is removed, leaving the apparatus in the skin. This is removed at the end of 10 or 14 days, depending on how long the sensor is supposed to last.
Anyway, if anyone has questions, I'd be happy to answer them. It's actually much nicer and simpler than just describing it, and if people have the opportunity to try it, I recommend it based on my experience and the experience of friends who are on the same or similar systems (most of my friends with Type I diabetes are on the continuous glucose monitors, usually the Dexcom).
Good luck!
