New Sensor Longevity Record

I've been away a few days, so haven't had a chance to blog. My family and I traveled to New Jersey over the long Columbus Day weekend to see Godspell at the Paper Mill Playhouse. Excellent show, updated for the current times. Rap wasn't around in the 70s. I was concerned during the show that my DexCom CGMS might sound off, but fortunately, it didn't! I wish they'd add a vibrate all feature, similar to my Verizon Razr phone. I'm paranoid about it going off in church, the theater, or a movie. So far, it hasn't happened, but it's only a matter of time.

Anyway, took a chance this past weekend and didn't bring an extra sensor. The sensor lasted the whole long weekend in addition to a week before that, for a total of 11 days inserted in my stomach. After removing the sensor, I saw only a tiny red bump, the same size and shape that I've seen after leaving the sensor in for 3 days. There was only a very mild pink area where the adhesive was; very encouraging; averaging that sensor cost over 11 days, that's less than $3.50 a day, very reasonable, at least for my pocketbook.

I think I'm going to change the sensors a max of every 10 days, even if some others have had them in longer. The last couple of days I thought that the sensor values were 50 or so points off from the Ultra meter, even after frequent calibration.

Only a month left until my next HBA1C; I've got my fingers crossed that this CGMS is really going to help me; I've modified my behaviors a great deal because of the CGMS; I'll be VERY DISAPPOINTED if I don't get some decent results!

I want my Raisin Bran Cereal

I was Dx'd a type 1 diabetic late in life several years ago at age 39, so I've had at least 35 years of enjoying any cereal that I wanted to eat: Cap'n Crunch, Wheaties, Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Boo-berry, Franken-berry, etc., etc.

As I grew older, I settled on the healthier cereals, enjoying wheaties, and my all-time favorite, Raisin Bran. The sugar-bomb cereal no longer appealed to my palette, and I was no longer into Saturday morning cartoons, 3 feet away from the TV, stuffing my face with this un-healthy junk. When I was a kid, we weren't as health conscious as we are now. My dad, a type 1 diabetic from age 19, would also have wheaties or cheerios, sprinkled with a healthy dose of the most disgusting sweetener that I ever tasted, sweet-n-low (forgive me if you enjoy the stuff, but I could never get past the after-taste). He never had the tools we have now; if he did, and saw the cereal response pictured here, perhaps he would have skipped the cereal.

I tried my best to limit the post-prandial spike- it still shot up to around 280 as you can see. This despite a bolus 20 minutes prior to eating, and starting with my BG at 94. I limited the carbs to about 37 grams, using light soy milk with only 5 grams of CHO for an 8 oz. serving. It took almost 4 hours to get my BS back to 100!

I'm not giving up just yet. I'm going to add some low-carb peanut butter and crackers to the meal to delay the carb absorption. I feel that I deserve at least 50 grams of carbs per meal. I'm not willing to go the low carb route; heck I went on the pump so I could eat somewhat like I did prior to my diagnosis, I'm hoping that with some more tweaking, I can enjoy my Raisin Bran.

DiabetesMine.com Day, and what's up with J&J and their new CGMS

To follow-up with my recent post on the CGMS dogfight cited in the Reuters article by Julie Steenhuysen, I'd like to direct you to another blogger that did an excellent piece on the same story. Please checkout Amy Tenderich's Article on DiabetesMine.

Amy serves up some enticing tidbits on what J&J is up to in their future CGMS due out in a couple of years, including a 15 minute warm-up time, no fingerstick calibrations, and improved accuracy.

Amy is a type 1 diabetic, a DexCom user, and a prolific diabetes journalist, who received the LillyforLife Achievement Award for Diabetes Journalism, and the 2006 Diabetes O.C. best blog award. Amy's site is a must read for any diabetic, including current and future CGMS users.