Thoughts While Dexcomless

From living without my Dexcom for weeks while my medical supply company and my doctor’s office seemed unable to pick up the phone and talk to each other, I’ve come to a few conclusions regarding continuous glucose monitoring:

1. Data is incredibly addictive.

2. It’s kind of nice to only have one device attached to my body at a time.

3. Insurance policies and doctors are not truly concerned with PWDs living long and healthy lives with the use of a CGM. They are interested in us not dying from sudden low glucose. A long trail of high bgs leading to organ damage and neuropathy seem to be no concern however and apparently the insurance will pay for the treatment of complications, but not prevention. An ounce of prevention is apparently not worth a pound or two of someone’s leg or hours in dialysis. The medical determinations that lead my plan to only cover a CGM with evidence of hypoglycemic unawareness and for no other reasons are utterly ridiculous. But their disease management program wants to know if I’ve had a blood sugar reading over 170 in the last 6 months. I have type 1 diabetes and without a CGM of-freaking-course I have!

Now that I’m back on my Dexcom I sleep better, I’m more comfortable driving and I worry less. I wasn’t kidding when I told Matt at Mashable that my CGM has saved my life.

Yes it’s another thing that I have to stick in myself, but it makes living with diabetes just a little easier. Surprisingly after this CGM vacation, inserting the sensor didn’t hurt the way I expect it to!

You may have seen a video circulating the Diabetes Online Community of a guy who doesn’t have diabetes checking his blood sugar and injecting saline… if not you can watch it here: http://youtu.be/g9CIub8V3p8 Anyway, he agreed to talk with me and I’ll have that interview for you tomorrow.