I feel naked! No, not really … but I’ve been wearing CGMs 24/7 since 2006! Yup, I was at the head of the line for the first Dexcom, the STS, a 3-day sensor with wild variability … and Dexcom was such a small company that I invited the VP of Government Affairs and one of the 10 sales reps to my home to sit around and chat about my experiences with the Dex 3. It was a frustrating device but with great potential … I fondly named it PoS.
I switched to the Abbott Navigator, as soon as it became available on the market … and loved it (except the 10 hour start-up and the painful sensor insertion). And then, BAM, it went off the market in the US. I even contemplated traveling to Israel or the Netherlands to buy it there.
But I settled for slinking back to Dexcom, for the Seven, and then the Seven Plus. It was indeed getting better and better, as I thought it would. And I was the first in line to get the new Platinum G4 … WAY more accurate, although clunkier (explained to me for the parents who wanted a greater range away from the transmitter … which did not at all affect me but the size did).
That all said, I’ve been CGM-ing (is there a better term … maybe BG-sensing or BG-ing?) for about 8 years. Yup, wearing a sensor, learning about Hypofix and Skin Tac, Yahoo’s Diabetes CGM forum, figuring out where to stash the receiver when wearing formal attire, etc. Twenty Four Hours a Day, Seven Days a Week.
I am NOT complaining at all. I am so grateful for the technology and the alerts and the trend lines.
After wearing the last sensor, successfully for 31 days (that’s over 4 weeks … a record for me), I started to get the infamous??? and knew it was time to replace the sensor. I took it off this morning and knew that it would be inconvenient for me to test in two hours, so I decided to leave it off. Very daring!
And I felt NAKED! I could pull down my pants with carefree abandon, not thinking for one moment about the lumpy sensor and being careful not to knock it off. FREEDOM. Almost made me giddy.
It’s been about 6 hours, now mid-afternoon … and I am thinking that I might just wait a few more hours! A guilty pleasure! I’m sure it will catch up with me later today … and I’ll be back BG-ing tonight.
But for now … yippppeeeee, woo hoo, and saaaaaweeeet!
