Tag: NHS Scotland

Seven observations on using the FreeStyle Libre for a week

Emma7 Comments
hand holding FreeStyle libre meter
You will prise this from my cold, dead hand…

Blood, I miss the sight of you… I’d gotten used to those tiny beads that popped from the tips of my fingers several times a day. This week, not so much.

And as misses go, it’s a rubbish one, right?

As the proud new owner of a FreeStyle Libre (may the universe rain her blessings down on NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde), I know the much-vaunted advantages. Ability to test more often and easily. Probable positive effect on your HbA1c levels (the long-term measure of blood glucose in the body) and reduced likelihood of complications.

Here, then, are my observations on the lesser quoted points you notice when you wear one…

  1. I’m clumsy as heck. Yes, I keep bumping into door frames. Maybe I always have walked into them on a regular basis but when I hit my right arm (the one I’m wearing the sensor on) off a door frame, I notice. Three times in the first four hours of wearing it.
  2. The absence of black dots. Those of us who’ve spent our lives doing five or six blood tests a day (see above) can hold out fingers tips covered in tiny black dots. Occasionally, the skin peels away in protest. Three days in and mine VANISHED.
  3. Oh, the joy of the night-time test! You wake up, roll over, grab the sensor from our bedside table and wave it in the direction of your arm. Voila! The result. No messing around opening that wee case up, taking out the tube of sticks, popping it open, finding a stick and taking three attempts to insert it into meter, pricking your finger and missing the stick with the dot of blood, etc. And all done in the dark because you don’t want to disturb your other half.
  4. No more vampire impressions. I did blood tests on public transport, in offices, when out and about, in the gym, the cinema, the pub, restaurants and more. And I was discreet about it, but when your finger bleeds you suck it to get rid of the excess, right? Some folks think that is disgusting or that you should always wipe it on a tissue or surgical wipe. Who has the foresight to carry all that around as well as everything else?
  5. Having to remind yourself you can test whenever the heck you want. I’ll get used to the feeling quickly but I’m still adjusting. Shall I test again? No, no I only pricked my finger an hour ago and I’m only prescribed XX amount of sticks every months so no… Stop right there, lady. Shall I run the meter over my sensor again? Yes, yes, yes!*
  6. Staring at your graph. Oh the fascination of watching what your blood sugar levels get up to over eight hours. Telling yourself you will record this properly, oh yes you will, and work out patterns so you can make educated adjustments, rather than relying on guesswork.
  7. Missing the sight of blood. As you might have guessed, the intro to this piece was a big, fat lie. I’m one hundred percent happy that bloody fingers are a thing of the past (ish, you still have to do some).

* Ten’s the recommendation, in case you were wondering. Too many’s not good on the sanity levels.

FreeStyle Glucose Monitoring – an Update

Emma10 Comments

freestyle libre on the Diabetes DietHashtag love the NHS—and the NHS in Scotland if we’re going to be specific.

Off I trotted to the diabetic clinic on Thursday armed with my best persuasion skills. Oh pleasy-weasy dear doctor, may I have a FreeStyle Libre flash glucose monitoring system? One of my arguments was going to be—Hey, you won’t be paying for it for too long. Did you see the recent research that tells me I can expect to knock eighteen years off my life expectation?!*

In the end, my polished debate wasn’t needed. Just as well as I couldn’t sell hot-water bottles to the Inuit. Or ice-cold beer to Australian sun-bathers for that matter. I brought the subject up. The doctor queried the number of blood tests I do per day and voila. I’m on a list. I’ll need to go to an education event and after that, a letter wings its way to my GP recommending she prescribes the sensors.

Sensors

Flash glucose monitoring for those of you who aren’t familiar with it is where you wear a sensor on your body (usually your upper arm) and you can take a reading from it using a monitor. It differs from blood testing in that it’s super quick and easy. You don’t need to prick your finger and you can check endlessly and the sensor works through your clothing.

Those of us who tend towards obsessive compulsive disorder—it’s hard not to when you’ve got diabetes—might baulk at that, but I am looking forward to monitoring what happens to me during exercise. And when I’m eating.

The device doesn’t come with an alarm—i.e. a warning when your blood sugar goes too far up or down, or it changes rapidly but there is software for that. The cat lover in me is delighted the manufacturers chose to call the software MiaoMiao, and this sends readings to your phone every five minutes, and will warn you of spikes.

Hello Big Brother!

You can even connect it to others’ devices, so they can monitor you too. I’ll skip that as it feels too Big Brother-y to me. Most type 1s hate other people telling them when they are hypo. Imagine how much worse this would be!

Incidentally, all this new diabetes-related tech has had a knock-on effect on the hospital I go to. Thursday’s clinic was running one hour late because it was so busy. The doctor told me he can’t get the GP support (where a GP handles some of the patients to gain experience in diabetes care), thanks partly to the fast development of new tech.

Our GPs are under so much pressure, it’s too difficult for them to keep up with all the tech that type 1s use these days—pumps, continuous glucose monitoring, flash glucose monitoring, software and more. My appointments have been spaced eight months apart for the last few years and that’s likely to change to a year from now on.

But in the meantime, I have my new toy and a whole heap of questions for Google. Can you wear it in the steam room? How much is MiaoMiao? How many actual blood tests do I still need to do to calibrate the thing?

Thanks again NHS Scotland. I look forward to reporting back.

 

*Whatevs. I debated discussing the research here and decided it wasn’t useful. Doom-laden stuff is such a turn-off isn’t it?