Had a business lunch today and only had 3/4 of a club sandwich…maybe had 20 or 25 homemade potato chips….Took additional insulin to cover and 2 hours after lunch and I am pinging 244 on my Dexcom…..What the heck?  It is times like these that you question yourself and your ability to estimate carbs. I’m guessing I mis figured but that is sure a pretty good size miss.  Oh well…..........what are you gonna do?  Keep on fighting the good fight and just plow on…...it seems to be the only thing that makes any kind of sense to me.. Helllooo insulin….

Ah, the joys of diabetes….........................

I have been blessed to have been using a Dexcom cgms for close to 4 years now and have religiously had my Dex by my side. Amazingly I have not lost it in all that time and have found it to be a great tool in helping me manage my disease. My most recent A1C was 5.9 woo hoo…...and that is because with the pump and the cgms, I can make decisions and get feed back quickly.
In the last 6 months however, I have drowned 2 Receivers and have had to buy new ones because of it..
How…..well, let me paint the picture for you.
Yaaaaawnnnn…..stumble out of bed, clip my Dex to my pajamas…..stumble into the bathrooom, pull up my t shirt…..splash….Dex jumps right into the toilet. Pull it out within 1/10th of a second, and alas it is completely dead. It wont dry out, it just dies. The receiver is not anywhere even close to being water resistant.How did this happen….well, in my sleepy state, I probably got part of my tshirt caught in the clip and when moving my shirt, splash down!!!
It sounds stupid I know, but I am guessing this happens to folks pretty often when you figure the thousands and thousands of folks using them.
After recently spending a bunch of money again to buy a new one, I figured I would plan for the ultimate inevetabilty of my cgms getting wet again.Storms or dropped in puddles, or a sink….what have you.

I looked online for simple solutions….water proof cases and the like….but I couldnt find anything that was small enough, didn’t look like a big ole box on my hip, or was inconspicuous.
My solution…..a small Hefty sandwich bag. I wrote “Reward” and my phone number on the back of the unit in case I ever mistakingly lose it some where. I put the cgms in the bag and slide and stuff it all into my cgms case from Descom. It is very simple and cheap, and effective. The cgms is still visible as the bag is clear and functionality is not affected. You do have to take it out to charge it however…but it’s not a big deal. And you can replace the bag if you ever think its torn.
You may not even think it is a problem for you, and I didn’t for 3.5 years with this never happening to me either. Not me..I said to myself. ..I am extremely careful, I wouldn’t ever drop my cgms into water….Yeah right!!!!
I would recommend you do something….Trust me, you dont want to look at that dieing cgms and think Oh man, its over….Dex is dead…...

I have posted on this previously but I think it’s important. I used to think that was a crazy question. Now I’m not so sure. Tony at Dsainsights posed that question a while back and I told him I thought he had lost his mind. After paying attention for quite a few months now, Im not positive, but I think he is right. I have noticed that I do tend to trend upward pretty dramatically in the a.m. after drinking coffee. I can’t prove it 100% but it sure seems  like coffee is the cause of it…   Adrenaline and all that…...

Keep an eye out and see what you think. Watch it over time and see what your conclusion is….

oh yeah,   and chocolate mocha latte doesn’t count….  I’m talking coffee coffee….the straight stuff with just cream or sweet and low…
let me know …................

The FDA says:

This is to alert you to the possibility of falsely elevated blood glucose results when using GDH-PQQ glucose test strips on patients who are receiving therapeutic products containing certain non-glucose sugars. These sugars can falsely elevate glucose results, which may mask significant hypoglycemia or prompt excessive insulin administration, leading to serious injury or death. The following provides background information on this problem, a summary of fatality reports FDA has received, and recommendations to reduce the risk. This problem can occur wherever these products are used including in-patient and out-patient healthcare facilities, and at home.

This seems to be a recurring topic, here’s a FDA warning video from 2008:

Find full details here: http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/PublicHealthNotifications/ucm176992.htm

Here is a full list of to known affected Meters/Strips:

List of GDH-PQQ Glucose Test Strips
The following test strips (with associated meters) use GDH-PQQ methodology as of August 2009:
Roche Diagnostics:

• ACCU-CHEK Comfort Curve test strips, for use with:


• ACCU-CHEK Inform meters [model 2001201]


• ACCU-CHEK Complete meters [models 200 and 250]


• ACCU-CHEK Advantage meters [models 888, 831, 850, and 768]


• ACCU-CHEK Voicemate meters [model 0009221]


• ACCU-CHEK Aviva test strips, for use with:


• ACCU-CHEK Aviva meters [models 525, 535, and 555]


• ACCU-CHEK Compact test strips, for use with:


• ACCU-CHEK Compact meters [model GF]


• ACCU-CHEK Compact Plus meters [models GP and GT]


• ACCU-CHEK Go test strips


• ACCU-CHEK Go meters [model GJ]


• ACCU-CHEK Active test strips


• ACCU-CHEK Active meters [models GG and GN]

Abbott Diabetes Care:

• Freestyle test strips, for use with:


• FreeStyle meters


• FreeStyle Flash meters


• FreeStyle Freedom meters


• Freestyle Lite test strips, for use with:


• FreeStyle Lite meters


• FreeStyle Freedom Lite meters

Home Diagnostics:

TRUEtest test strips
TRUEresult meters
TRUE2go meters

Smiths Medical:

Abbott Diabetes Care Freestyle test strips, for use with:
CoZmonitor blood glucose module (for use with the Deltec Cozmo Insulin Pump)
Insulet:
Abbott Diabetes Care Freestyle test strips, for use with:
OmniPod Insulin Management System

Well, I am glad to say that I am back in one piece after a wonderful week on North Captiva Island in Florida. After about day 3, I kept getting an alarm and my pump quit working. Oooohhh noooooo!!!! Now on any other trip, I have always remembered to bring an old one as a backup, NOT this time, dang-it.

I called Medtronic, and they over nighted me one. I am always amazed how something can get from California to an Island in Florida only accessible by ferry in less than 24 hours. Wow! Medtronic was great with their service as always.

I did however have to go on the needle for about 24 hours. Now the problem was that I only had fast acting Humalog, and nothing else. Every 3 hours, get up test, or check the cgms (which was also acting a little funny that day) take some insulin. Everything worked great until about hour 23 when I went down to the office to hopefully pick up my pump. They told me it wasnt there yet. Ok, no problem, it’s probably on the next ferry over.

That is the last thing I remember. I was almost blacked out on my way back to the house as apparently I was over injecting and was having a severe hypo. Thank God my son was driving around on his golf cart as he saw me driving at about 1/2 mile an hour with a blank look on my face. He got me home and my wife pumped me up with glucose gels, of course the inevitable super high followed.

However the pump came, and I was able to get back on a basal rate to get back under control. Lessons learned? Oh yeah, always bring a back up pump or some slow acting insulin when leaving town or being away from home. I already knew, that. Somehow, when things are buzzing along well, you don’t really think about the possibility of problems. I messed up and didn’t have a plan B. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The good Lord and my family have saved my skin. Yet Again!

Keep going
Peace, Bob

Entry event tagging really helps keep things in context when inputting your stats. When you tag entries it helps then aggregate trends and stats for that tag over time. You can then find out trends such as what your average blood sugar was before and after breakfast for example.

In order to encourage entry tagging and make it easier, we’ve recently pushed out a few small new feature updates. Previously you had to manually type in your tag for each entry with the added benefit of it auto-completing the tag name based on what you were typing.

Top Tags Pop-up Box

We’ve added to this and now offer a pop-up box with your top 20 tags so you can easily click on the tag you want without having to touch the keyboard.

All you have to do is click on the tag input text-field and it will pop up. If you don’t want to select an existing tag and would rather enter a new one just start typing.

This makes it easy for you to have quick access to the tags you use the most (i.e: “Before Breakfast”, “After Dinner”, “High Sugar” etc).

Pop-up design credit and inspiration has to go to the Freckle team, they did a great job.

Auto-Tagging

Manual tagging is great, but what if you have a semi-routine schedule or habit? Such as always eating breakfast between 6am-8am, Exercising after work between 5pm-7pm or eating lunch late at 2pm-3pm?

Well now you can add auto-tagging rules to automatically tag your entries based specifically off some of these common routines in your schedule. Tags will be automatically attached to entries which match your rules. Right now the rules are based on time and entry type, but we’re hoping to expand it in the future to be able to match more criteria.

You can access your Auto-Tagging list in your settings (http://manage.sugarstats.com/auto_taggings) and there is even an example for you to create your own rules from. So now anytime you add an entry, via the web or mobile, if it matches any of your existing auto-tagging rules those tags will be added to that entry.

Using both the new tag pop-up box and the auto-tagging functionality is optional, so if you want to keep using the previous methods you’re welcome to do so.

Why Tag Entries?

Tagging is important to keep things in context. So if you add your tags to all your sugar entries for example, you can then go to your Last 30 Days page and see this:

These are just the first in a number of future tag enhancements we’re planning and we will be adding more and more new features based on your tags.

We hope you like it and that this makes tagging entries easier overall. If you have any suggestion, feedback or notice bugs feel free to let us know: support@sugarstats.com

From everyone here on the SugarStats team we just wanted to wish everyone (or at least all our American users) a great and happy new year.

Time to reflect and really be grateful for the people, friends and support we have in our lives. Of course also enjoy all the wonderful food, just be careful not to go into a food induced coma! I guess where food moderation fails, at least there will always be the bolus?

Have a great day everyone!

Hi Everyone, this week we handle Myth Number 2: Diabetes only happens to old or really overweight people, or those with a family history-FALSE

This is a favorite of mine because I hear it all the time, usually from a patient who just cannot believe they really have Diabetes.

Now, it is true that many people with high sugars are very overweight or obese. They also are more likely to have a family member with diabetes. It is also true that your chances of developing diabetes increase as you get older. HOWEVER, it is very (more…)