Initial Dexcom Reactions

After my little incident a couple of weeks ago, my CDE and endo talked me into trying out a CGM. Since I have an Animas pump, I’m using the Dexcom. I’ve worn it for about three days now and I still can’t decide how I feel about it. I got it mostly to help me identify when I’m heading toward a low, but I find it most helpful in identifying when I’m going up since I personally hate being high when pregnant. My endo told me not to overreact when I see spikes after meals since he knows I’m an aggressive corrector, and so far I’ve been able to do that. I was even surprised that my postprandial spikes aren’t as bad as I thought they might be. So that has been one interesting tidbit I’ve learned from Dex.

On the other hand, Dex annoys me often. I understand and can even accept that it is sometimes up to 20% off (so if I’m 100, it could say I’m 120, or 80), but I have no patience for when it is 60, 70 or even 100 points off. What is the point of this technology if I can’t rely on the data being even remotely accurate? It seems like a lot of trouble for something that gives faulty information.

I do find the little trending arrows to be helpful, so it’s almost like I’ve already starting ignoring the actual number on the screen and just watching the arrows. I have been woken up about 5 times already by Dex, only twice for legitimate highs/lows, and the other three times were false alarms. While I was glad to be woken up the two times when it mattered, I was annoyed the other three times when I was woken up for no reason (and I was really annoyed when one of those times ended up being about 100 points off!).

So, while I’m certainly not an avid fan of Dex, I’m trying to wait it out a bit more to give it some more time. We’ll see if I can figure out ways to make use of it as best I can without getting constantly irritated by the fact that ultimately, the technology just isn’t there yet.

In more uplifting news, I'm almost out of my first trimester - only two more days to go. I can't believe it, and am SO excited to be moving on to this next phase!  More to come on that later.  In the meantime, hope everyone stateside has a great holiday weekend!