CGM Me
I hate needles, so needless to say this whole ordeal has brought me closer to them and thus has desentitized me to them a bit. I count the lancet that is used in a ‘finger stick’ as a needle, cuz it’s sharp, pokes through the skin, and hurts.
I opted for the CGM, Continous Glucose Monitor, route of monitoring my blood sugar almost immediately. It was a folly to get that perscription properly called in and filled, but finally did it. I pay something like $70/mo out-of-pocket for my CGM units, which is the overall national rate for them via some weird “back-office discount” thing that Abbott has with the pharmacies. Better than $140-150 otherwise, but not as good as “Free”.
I have been lax about wearing them the last month, as my overall concern is high blood sugar and not low, I am less concerned about consistently wearing it. Mostly because, I sleep on my side and well regardless of which arm it is in, I find it can be uncomfortable at some point during sleep, though in my right arm is the less troublesome of the two, as I generally sleep on my left-side.
The Abbott app for monitoring is pretty decent, the data that is collected and sent up into the cloud has some nice charts and graphs. I mean blood sugar is an amazing thing, lots of data to track including events like eating, exercise, insulin injections, etc.
I find it fascinating that per the monitor (and finger sticks, because SCIENCE) my blood sugar will shoot up over 200 after a shower.
Normal Peaks and Valleys
I have been monitoring my blood sugar using the CGM, that I have a good idea of how I “feel” and what my blood sugar will read as, at least within 20 points. I have seen where my blood sugar spikes after I eat, when I eat a low carb meal, I probably push close to 190. When I eat a carb heavy meal, like we did the other night (Qdoba burrito, light rice) and some sweet tarts afterward, my blood sugar hit like 330. Within four hours of eating that meal and that spike my blood sugar was back down to normal. I decided to work out in the home gym for 30 minutes to take it down a little more, also needed to finish my workout requirement for the day.
During that high blood sugar time, I was a little sleepy, but it was also later in the evening, and I had just eaten, so did that feel normal. Yeah, felt like I am sure everyone does after having a ‘heavy’ meal, little sleepy. But by the time we got home, we ate in Traverse City (about 40 minutes from home), I was not sleepy any longer.
So when I workout my blood sugar goes down, which makes sense my muscles are using it up, as they should. When I workout earlier in the day, I feel my blood sugar is lower all day, which jives with how working out gets the heart rate up and keeps it up for extended periods of time.
What goes down, must come up?
Sometimes my blood sugar will go down after I eat, then after 20-30 minutes it will bounce back up. They say a CGM is about 20-30 minutes behind a finger stick reading, as it’s reading serum vs blood. And placement near muscle also changes your readings, I’ve had it were the readings were 30-40 points higher due to being too close to the muscle. Given how much fat I’ve lost in my arms, there isn’t a lot there that isn’t muscle (or bone).
I have noticed that particular trend about a month into wearing the CGM. It has stayed a pretty consistent trend. I am hoping that it is my body producing more insulin and that either I don’t quite produce enough or that I need more overall muscle mass to assist in combating the insulin resistence I built up.
I have noticed that if I am taking my Metformin on a timely basis, my overall blood sugar staying in the ’normal’ range. I still don’t know exactly what it does, but here is the textbook definition: “Metformin works by helping to restore the body’s response to insulin. It decreases the amount of blood sugar that the liver produces and that the intestines or stomach absorb.”
So between my weight loss and the Metformin, I think I am going to be able to get off the insulin. (Less needles!)
Is it worth it
100% I believe it is fully worth the money for $35 a sensor, which lasts for two-weeks at a time. I cover mine with an additional waterproof cover, as I swim (and in the summer kayak), so why not protect it a little bit more. It is waterproof by design, but simple sticker cover makes it that much safer.
When I was at the YMCA last month, I had an older gentleman ask me about my sensor, which was readily noticable on my upper arm. He asked “Is that for diabetes?” I explained it was a CGM and talked to him about it and how I use it. He himself was recently diagnoses with diabetes and after a lifetime as a laborer, his fingers are not easy to finger stick, I’ve noticed that on a few of my fingers the skin is thicker and I have to use the lancet at a 4 or 5, vs on my pinky fingers, I only need it at a 1.
We discussed a little bit about how exercise changes the blood sugar, and he appreciated the conversation. So “word of mouth marketing” even goes for CGM.
When I had my DEXA scan, apparently they are a very common sight at the athletic department that it is housed in, but I was the first she had seen it on that was for diabetes. The rest of them do it as a means to “body hack” and try to optimize their diets for fat loss and muscle gain.