May I just gush for a bit?

[Rachel]

Ok, very few in our immediate life will understand this ... but we are just thrilled, tickled pink, happy as clams, and over the moon as we go into hour 48 of cgming.

Our son has a cold and fever which throws his numbers all high. So, while he was napping today, I checked to see how the lunch dose was doing, saw he was a bit high AND no arrows so knew that the cold was pushing things up. Did a correction, checked in and hour to see it bringing it down, but at only a 1-arrow rate. So at an hour and a half, when there should have still been an arrow or two, it was stable ... which led us to another correction. By dinner in range. NEVER EVER would have been so agressive with the corrections without the immediate knowledge of what was happening.

After an hour of flashlight dancing (we're in MN - we need to be creative for post dinner exercise with a 3 year old!) dinner numbers show no spike and so we're moving into snack, knowing that we'll need to check him earlier after bedtime to make sure all is well. Alarm just rang on his 90 and so we adjust the snack and snack dose accordingly.

Sorry for the ramble ... the essential point is we are just thrilled, tickled pink, happy as clams, and over the moon as we learn all the many ways the CGM can help us make decisions SO much sooner and with greater confidence.

To be able to flip my kids shirt up a bit, push two buttons, and see his glucose ... priceless.

Knew you'd understand ...

[EmmasMom]

:D Isn't it great!
I feel like I have so much more control than we ever got close to w/o this thing! Watching the trends, seeing the rate of change, knowing what's going on all the time instead of little snapshots here and there... being able to be aggressive with insulin doses while keeping them safe! It's really amazing!

My only caution for you is on the low alarms, I keep Emma's low setting at 110-120 during very active times of the day when I anticipate a drop, and about 100 at night, (depending on active insulin).
If there's a rapid drop, and the low alarm is at 90 and showing 2 down arrows, he may already be quite a bit lower since it's indicating a drop of 40+ points every 20 minutes. This doesn't happen to us often, but there have been a few times that she's been 100 with 2 down arrows, and 60-70 on a finger stick. Not surprising with the slight time delay.
I adjust the alarms regularly to fit our needs at the time. Sometimes I know she's stable and it's fine for her to be running at 100, but sometimes I want to be alerted when she hits 130 because i know she's dropping like a rock. KWIM?

I'm glad it's going well for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:D

[Rachel]

Thanks for the tip on the alarm setting, Amy. I was suprised that we can only set one alarm level ... unlike for the bg range in the bolus wizard when you can set ranges for different times of day. Starting a mental list of things to share with Medtronic for their next version ... and that is on it.

I also wish the alarm were louder ... but I am training Will to tell me when he hears it. I happened to be asleep in his bed with him last night and we both slept through a good 45 minutes of alarming. Woops. Given that one of my gifts is easy and deep sleeping, maybe I just need to put my light-sleeping husband on the night shift? ;)

I am off to change the alarm setting for the night. Thanks again ... both for the tip and for sharing the excitement!

[EmmasMom]

The volume is definitely an issue at night if you're a sound sleeper!
I keep a baby monitor, (turned up pretty loud), on at night since Emma's room is across the house. It is a serious love-hate relationship... The alarms mean I go to bed with out worry, which is fantastic... and they also mean I'm up a lot silencing them which really wears on you after awhile!!! ;)
If you're having trouble hearing them I highly recommend a monitor, and also try to leave to pump loose in the bed. A pump pouch can really muffle the sound of the alarms!

I agree that multiple settings for the high and low alarms would be great! At least it's easy to adjust them. Maybe the next generation will have all the features we want!:)

[rmccully2000]

I understand completely!! Can you believe you ever made decisions without knowing direction and rate of change? It's awesome to have "sight", isn't it!

Becky, Mom to Mason, 7 Dexcom, Iport

[Rachel]

If you're having trouble hearing them I highly recommend a monitor, and also try to leave to pump loose in the bed. A pump pouch can really muffle the sound of the alarms!


Literally loose in the bed? Does it get tangled up? I was thinking of pulling out the clip /holster thing-a-ma-bob that came with the pump and clipping that to the pjs but will try the loose option too. Thanks!

Baby moniter was on high last night ... I slept through the alarm but my husband woke up ... maybe it is not a bad feature after all. ;)

You all - and the cgm - are my new best friends!

[bkfkmc]

We had to try 3 baby monitors before I found one that I could hear from. I am not a heavy sleeper, but husband is the one that wouldn't wake up during a natural disaster!!!:( (So, if your husband will wake up, that's just an added bonus!:p ) The first 2 that I tried had the features to drown our background noise and the pump alarm was considered background noise. I finally found one that I could hear the beep through while testing it out. With that being said, hearing the beep at night is another thing all together. Many times it has to be beyond the nice kind beeps to the all out constant one before I even budge. I do hope the next one has a louder volume option. I have already reported this request to MM.

[EmmasMom]

Literally loose in the bed? Does it get tangled up? I was thinking of pulling out the clip /holster thing-a-ma-bob that came with the pump and clipping that to the pjs but will try the loose option too. Thanks!

Baby moniter was on high last night ... I slept through the alarm but my husband woke up ... maybe it is not a bad feature after all. ;)

You all - and the cgm - are my new best friends!

Yep, loose in the bed!;) Since the site is under her diaper I feel pretty confident that it wont pull, I'm not sure how well this will work with underwear! She really doesn't get too tangled, occasionally it's around her leg.
I tried the belt clip, and it worked fine, it just looked really uncomfortable. My husband has always left his pump "free" in the bed at night and he's never had trouble... so hopefully this will be the case for Emma too!

It's great that your hubby hears the alarms! Maybe he will decide to silence them before you have to wake up!!! My DH sleeps like a rock, so I don't have this perk! :p

[jpb286]

I just chuck the pump in bed as well. I sleep HARD. And by hard, I mean I wake up in the same position as when I went to sleep (confirmed by a sleep study!)

I have a theory....Perhaps this is because my brain is trained to go to bed EXPECTING to be woken up at some ungodly hour by a loud claxon, with every flourescent light on the ceiling kicking on all at the same time, staggering out into the ambulance bay groggy as hell, not-even-in-my-body-yet, start the truck turn on the blinky-blinkies and noisemakers and sacrifice another hour's sleep to go to someones emergency, only to crawl back into bed and repeat the same process in an hour.

If anyone ever wonders why ambulances go by at 3am with NO traffic and the sirens and air horns blaring, you can blame me. My bad. If I have to be up so does everybody else. So I apologize in advance to all the people I will undoubtedly wake up at 3:05am by flipping through every tone on the double modulating sirens, and standing on the air horns at every clearly visibly abandoned intersection just to wake up the neighborhood.