Day One: Continuous Glucose Monitor Trial

I know what my blood sugar is right NOW!

. . . .and NOW!

. . . . . . . and NOW!

. . . . . . . . . . . and NOW!

I am Wendy Morgan and today is the first day of a trial I am participating in with Abbott Labs for the Freestyle Navigator Continuous Glucose Monitor. I am officially the first person enrolled in the trail and about one hour ago, I got my first reading from the Navigator.

I have had type one diabetes since I was 14 and utilize a Minimed Insulin pump now, after some 12 years on the pump. I jumped at the chance to try a CGM because I am incredibly sick of feeling guilty for not checking my blood sugar more often. I am in moderate control, A1c was around 7.6 a few months ago, but I am an extremely busy mom (of a daughter with type one) and married to a great man with type 2.

I spent three and a half hours in training this morning and the device is incredibly easy to use, but what is so amazing is how it lets you not only see your blood sugar, but it also calculates the trend. Right now the Navigator shows my blood sugar is 128 and an arrow is pointing east, which means my sugars are trending at a stable level. If the arrow points NE- I am trending slightly up, N - it is going up, SE - going slightly down and S - trending down.

Another amazing feature is that the Navigator has an alarm that will alert you when you are 10, 20 or 30 minutes (at your discretion) away from a high blood glucose reading or a low glucose. For instance, if I am 90 at noon, 80 at 12:20 and I am 10 minutes away from hitting 70, an alert will sound and help me prevent hypoglycemia. Same goes for the other direction.

Tomorrow I will talk more about the actual device--first impressions after a night of wearing the thing. I will say it is comfortable so far--keep your fingers crossed. 131 ->