I have filled the prescriptions for the first time.
The sample CGM the doctor gave me was a dud, so I had to use one of the ones from the pharmacy right away, which is slightly concerning, because it means that the second one expires on the same day I can pick up new ones.
I have asked the doctor for another sample.
Have not yet needed the glycogon inhaler, so I can report on it directly, but I can report that work isn’t crazy about me having it, in spite of the facts that it’s pretty much impossible for a child to operate, and a child is going to have to know to stick it up their nose-- putting it in your mouth doesn’t do much, because it’s formulated to be absorbed by your nasal passages.
They still wanted me to walk down to the clock-in room to use it, even though that would defeat the whole purpose of the immediacy of it.
However, it is small enough to fit in a large prescription pill bottle (not huge, just one size up from my pharmacy) with a childproof cap, and since that is the protocol for ANY medication being in the room and in my personal bag, I can keep it there; since it is single-use, I’ve convinced them to let me take it out of the bottle, step just outside the door, and use it.
The fact it, that early warnings of impending low sugar from the CGM may eliminate blood sugars in the 20s altogether.
The current CGM I’m using is humming along.
I have learned that I have quick very high spikes I didn’t know about. Spot checking after eating-- even after deliberate attempts to provoke a spike, have never resulted in finger-sticks over 145. But I provoked one (chocolate muffin on empty stomach) of 187. I never had anything that high before except in the hospital on IV dextrose.
Thing is, that spike was so brief, I never could have caught it with a glucometer. The rise from 90 (before I ate the muffin) to 140 was just a few minutes, then 140 to 180 a very short time. It started to drop after 187, and had dropped to 100 in less than a minute. It was at 65 in seconds.
That’s reactive hypoglycemia in a nutshell, except that I did not realize my spikes were that high. I knew eating a chocolate muffin on an empty stomach was a bad idea, and a sugar of 65 is 65 whether it is preceded by 157 or 187.
Testing A1C doesn’t pick up on it, because it measures averages, and very quick spike can be very high, but not throw off the average much if there are not many of them, and especially if you throw in a few 30s and 40s and a 20.
My A1C has been as low as 3.9, which is too low, and when it got up to 4.2, I thought I was controlling my diet better, but I may have just been 1) producing more spikes while 2) teaching my brain to function on ketones, so I wasn’t “altered” when my sugar was low.
So, this CGM not only solves the fingerstick problem at work, but is shifting the whole paradigm of treatment.
Appointment with dietician is next. When I say I have an appointment with a dietician, or even “clinical dietician,” people frequently comment that I don’t need to lose weight. “Nutritionist,” people seem to get, albeit, I think actually, “nutritionists” are just people who call themselves that, while “dietician” is a regulated healthcare specialty.
New phone is totally doing the job, and by going into the office, I discovered that a new phone made me a “new” customer, and qualified me for a discount plan, so now I’m saving $10 a month on my phone bill.
The old phone is in good shape, with a resale value of about $75, from what I can Google. Though, if anyone out there wants a decent Android phone, no cracks, just about exactly a year old (2024 model, but I bought it last year), let me know. I’ll just send it to you, after you guys have been so generous with me.