Beware, what follows has somehow turned into a slightly bizarre piece using animals to illustrate HbA1c result ;
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Beware, what follows has somehow turned into a slightly bizarre piece using animals to illustrate HbA1c result ;
It’s so nice to see some real tangible proof of how a pump and CGM can actually make a difference. I’ve always been curious to know just how much difference a pump would make, but this is pretty dramatic. Congratulations 🙂
Best analogy-strained-to-breaking-point on the site, ever! 😀
Delighted with your skiing kangaroo! I’m stuck with being Ckoei, so that makes me a hippo in quicksand: since 2007, I’ve slowly sunk from middle sixes to 4.8 (which might be bedrock, I’ve been there the last 2 visits). I can’t point a blaming finger at pump&CGM, though – currently suspicion rests on chicken-hearted thyroid(confirmed) and adrenals(to be tested on 20 July) that are being bullied by overzealous immune system.
Fantastic graph @Alison. Still working for my inner Armadillo 🙂
Wondering how much of a factor the CGM is? Do other shoot-up pumpers all have similar success stories with or without CGMs, or does the CGM make a sizeable contribution to the alpine kangaroo -> armadillo transformation?
@Mike I think I would have seen significant improvement with just the pump, but I think it’s been easier having the CGM aswell. I’ll write a post on it.
Love the animal analogy. But even more seriously, I’m jealous of even your trained kangaroo before it evolved into an armadillo… No idea what kind of animal my 7.7 might be, but it’s most likely an untamed jungle cat that I’ve managed to get a handle on periodically but just won’t learn the lesson. Oh well… Thanks for sharing and great job on the A1Cs.
@alison Would be interesting to read your thoughts. I’ve a blog post brewing myself on the very same subject from an MDI perspective, of course…
@alison That is brilliant, but after what Tim told me I’d would be naive to expect anything less! 🙂
Although I would suggest we panic if those were the results from an ECG test!!!! hehehe
As for my inner HbA1c animal, well perhaps I should leave it up for you guys & girls to decide…
@mikeinspain So what exactly has my co-writer been telling you about me over beer in Switzerland? Spill!
@alison Nothing but sparkling compliments and wonderful words!! Seeing as you have a law degree as well I will shut up now! Enough whole digging for now! 🙂
@alison @mikeinspain – I said nothing about you Alison aside from horrifying insults.
@Tim I’d expect nothing less!
@mike – One of the attendees at Shoot Up nights out (but who rarely posts here, despite my protestations) swears by CGM and thinks even sans pump it makes a huge difference to her control.
The problem, though, is getting your hands on one. Getting them on the NHS is difficult and self-funding expensive.
@tim That’s pretty much exactly what I’m beginning to think would apply to me. I’d quite happily save them all that cash on a pump to swap a large number of test strips for a bit of CGM goodness
@mike Does your hospital not have a CGM you could borrow for a week to try it out? Or try Medtronic, they should give you a trial to see if it’s worth you fighting for funding for it.
I’m deffo going to ask the question. Sadly though I hear from many online d-types everywhere that it’s pretty much impossible to get one without a pump.
@tim Thankfully your words! hehe
If I had to choose between a Pump and CGMS I think I would with the latter. To me, a cgms would help me gain control, finally!
@alison Is you graph above recreated or straight from the software that you use for your pump/cgms?
I’m with you there @mikeinspain – let’s start a cgms-for-mdi-ers revolution!
@mikeinspain The graph is just from Excel, the CGM doesn’t record HbA1c results (although it does give me a 31 day BG average which I use to keep track of things).
It is rather spectacular when you have a visual reference for how much a pump/CGMS can improve your diabetes wrangling!
I’ve had my pump (no CGMS) since January, and I don’t know what effect it’s had on my HbA1c yet, but I’ve been plotting my weekly average blood sugars in excel, and you can see the difference even on that. My average blood sugar has dropped about 2 mmol/l in that time, and I’m dealing with less lows. Considering I was writing my PhD thesis for a good chunk of the past five months, I’d put that firmly in the win column!
As I use the excruciatingly excellent Accu-Chek® Compact Plus BG meter (sorry @Tim ;)), I upload my data into the Accu-Chek® Compass Software at the moment but it’s a bit old fashioned and pedestrian and has no means of recording HbA1c results. Courtesy of Accu-Chek® though, I have some new software on the way which is supposed to be more customisable, I’ll let you all know how it goes…
PS @Alison – I really love the kangaroos and armadillos, but I think my HbA1c results are more along the lines of a gila monster or a T Rex even… 😉