Yet more on the Nav vs Dex
1) Did I mention I love the arrow? however, caution is necessary here; all the arrow does is provide a current rate of change indication. This can be misleading when you are just about to peak, whether it is from food or from insulin. When that happens, the arrow can shift very quickly, and the predictive alarm can be completely useless.
1a) I would not use the predictive alarm on the 30 minute setting. Too much can shift in such a large time gap.
2) The transmitter IS big. Now, this isn't a problem during the day, but if you wear this sucker on your arm, and you like to sleep on your side... just make sure you can sleep on either side, because I guarantee you, you will not be sleeping on the side that has the transmitter in. Or you might, and wake up with a nice bruise sitting right under it.
3) The range is impressive. I've seen the signal stay on at 30 feet through two walls and a floor/ceiling.
4) The accuracy is better on the Nav. At this point I am going to say that from my one week experience with it, I am far more likely to trust it than I ever did the Dex. Where this really comes into play is when I'm resting or sleeping, when the interstitial fluid gets "pulled back". For some reason, whereas the Dex readings become less reliable at those crucial (sleeping) times, the Nav manages to continue on merrily with the same level of accuracy as while fully awake. That is rather critical.
5) I think there is also something to do with the Ultratouch used to calibrate the Dex vs the built in Freestyle Flash that comes with the Nav. I have now used both for a while as part of my comparisons, and have found that the UT consistently displayes lower blood sugars than the Freestyle. The gap can be quite big, 30-40 points. Thing is, the Nav seems a lot happier with calibration results than the Dex ever was (I used to almost always get "???" following calibrations, as if the Dex didn't like them), leading me to believe that my UT may be "off". This would (finally!) explain why my A1c's for the past year never seemed to reflect the Dex averages - they always looked like I had higher averages. If the UT was skewing low, then so would the Dex, compared to reality.
6) I think I found a way to "reset" the transmitter after the 5-day sensor expiration without needed to remove and reattach it. It's simple: go to the menu, choose system, then status, then removed sensor. Approve that, then wait for a minute. The system will then pop up a question asking you if you inserted a new sensor. Confirm and it starts a new cycle. Never had to touch the transmitted to do that.
1a) I would not use the predictive alarm on the 30 minute setting. Too much can shift in such a large time gap.
2) The transmitter IS big. Now, this isn't a problem during the day, but if you wear this sucker on your arm, and you like to sleep on your side... just make sure you can sleep on either side, because I guarantee you, you will not be sleeping on the side that has the transmitter in. Or you might, and wake up with a nice bruise sitting right under it.
3) The range is impressive. I've seen the signal stay on at 30 feet through two walls and a floor/ceiling.
4) The accuracy is better on the Nav. At this point I am going to say that from my one week experience with it, I am far more likely to trust it than I ever did the Dex. Where this really comes into play is when I'm resting or sleeping, when the interstitial fluid gets "pulled back". For some reason, whereas the Dex readings become less reliable at those crucial (sleeping) times, the Nav manages to continue on merrily with the same level of accuracy as while fully awake. That is rather critical.
5) I think there is also something to do with the Ultratouch used to calibrate the Dex vs the built in Freestyle Flash that comes with the Nav. I have now used both for a while as part of my comparisons, and have found that the UT consistently displayes lower blood sugars than the Freestyle. The gap can be quite big, 30-40 points. Thing is, the Nav seems a lot happier with calibration results than the Dex ever was (I used to almost always get "???" following calibrations, as if the Dex didn't like them), leading me to believe that my UT may be "off". This would (finally!) explain why my A1c's for the past year never seemed to reflect the Dex averages - they always looked like I had higher averages. If the UT was skewing low, then so would the Dex, compared to reality.
6) I think I found a way to "reset" the transmitter after the 5-day sensor expiration without needed to remove and reattach it. It's simple: go to the menu, choose system, then status, then removed sensor. Approve that, then wait for a minute. The system will then pop up a question asking you if you inserted a new sensor. Confirm and it starts a new cycle. Never had to touch the transmitted to do that.
posted by Blinkered at 11:24 PM
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