[Diabetes-talk] Responses to talking blood glucosemeters and breakfasts

[Veronica Elsea]

Very interesting, Mike. The reason I'm surprised about the CGMS bit 
is that if we were to be able to talk to it, we'd have to carry four 
things around, maybe three. The meter is a complete separate remote, 
no meter built into the pump at all. So we'd have to carry the pump, 
meter and talking remote. The CGMS does talk to the pump and next 
time I'm with my pump group I'll ask them how they access the info, 
whether or not it's just in a menu or what. And watching how people 
work with them, I can actually see how we could have interpretation 
of the data. What they see is a number, which we could certainly have 
read. With the number there is an arrow which points either up or 
down. It points more steeply if it's a sudden change and is flat if 
the BG level is not changing. This could easily be represented by a 
tone which goes up or down with a rapid up or down speed to indicate 
a sudden change or a steady pitch if nothing is changing. The 
information they get from the CGMS isn't really all that complex on 
the screen. Of course, they can download the information and see the 
whole pattern on their computers. But again, the accuracy does vary 
here and the reading can often be about 15 minutes behind reality. 
You set alarms to let you know if you're going below or above a 
certain number. So we could certainly have something yelling at us if 
the device thinks we're below 70, for instance. I know there are 
currently two major brands running around, the MedTronix and DexCom. 
Don't look at that spelling. <grin.> So far I've heard more good 
things about the DexCom. Apparently it can be really hard to shut up 
some of these alarms. At this point I think they're good for 
discerning patterns but not really ready to replace regular meters. 
And here's a change of point of view for me. It's beginning to look 
like a specially trained dog will in fact detect a low blood sugar 
reading sooner than a CGMS will. That did surprise me. And then, 
should have known! Hahahahaha!
But I do hope the technology advances.
But in the end, what I really really hope is that we have a choice of 
device, whatever it is. There are some pretty major differences 
between the current brands of insulin pumps that matter a lot to me 
and yes, some of those things may even over-ride accessibility for 
me. We'll just have to see.

Veronica
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