I've been a type I diabetic for 23 years now... and for 23 years I have been dreaming about the day when I will have access to a blood glucose monitoring system that works
all the time.
Being brittle, even keeping my A1C's under 7 has always been a struggle, but I've more or less done it by virtue of testing 15-20 times a day. I actually got to the point of having A1C's under 6 for a while, but it was accompanied by many hypos, so I became a bit more cautious. In any case, 15-20 tests a day still doesn't come close to being enough; many of these are clustered around times I think I am going low or high, when I test 4 times an hour. It helps avoid some major swings. But I don't get to test when I'm sleeping, and let me tell you, it's sometimes very difficult to recognize that I'm tired because my blood sugar is dropping fast as opposed to simply being tired. Dawn phenomenon doesn't help either. And I am one of those people whose blood sugars can swing 60 points in 15 minutes, easy, so even 15-minute interval testing isn't always enough.
The answer is continuous testing, or at least a close approximation of that. Hence my dream.
About two years ago I've come to learn of the
Freestyle Navigator, developed by
Therasense, which was the answer to my dream: it would provide continuous monitoring of blood sugar levels throughout the day, providing almost real time results whenever I wanted them. I waited. And waited.
Therasense was bought by
Abbott, and still I waited. For whatever reason, the bloody thing kept getting stuck for approvals with the FDA.
Then, a few weeks ago, I was reading the diabetes group on Deja, and I stumbled on a post about CGMS - Continuous Glucose Monitoring System. As I was reading, it became apparent that there were already two other devices on the market - the
Guardian RT from
Medtronic, and the
Dexcom Seven from
Dexcom.
Wow!
I started reading up on all of these, then I followed up with calls to both companies. It's a long story with many conclusions, but I won't bore you with too many details; the end result is that tomorrow I will be placing my order for a
Dexcom Seven system.
I don't know how quick the turnaround time is to get everything, and go through the necessary training, but boy oh boy oh boy, am I excited or what!
As for the Navigator - good luck to Abbott, for sure. But I don't want to wait anymore. There's something out there right now that looks good enough. If, as is at least partially indicated by stories from folks who have been on trial, their device ends up being that much better of a mouse trap when - if ever - it actually gets released, I may switch. In the meantime... this will be one happy christmas.
