Have you ever looked at your CGM and thought "that can't be right." We'll thats exactly what has happened to me the last 14 days. In today's episode I contemplate the question, should you trust your CGM and give you some strategic ways to overcome fluctuating misleading numbers.
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Podcast Disclaimer: Nothing that you hear on The Healthy Diabetic Podcast should be considered medical advice or otherwise; please always consult your medical TEAM before making any changes to your diabetes management
Have you ever looked at your CGM and thought "that can't be right." We'll thats exactly what has happened to me the last 14 days. In today's episode I contemplate the question, should you trust your CGM and give you some strategic ways to overcome fluctuating misleading numbers.
My Diabetes Resources:
Website: www.simplifyingdiabetes.com
Newsletter Sign Up
"More Than A1C" - My Signature Coaching Program
The Diabetes Nutrition Master Course
The 5-Pillars Of Diabetes Success Worksheet
Don't forget to check out Ancient Bliss an herbal supplement company.
Use Discount Code KEN20 for 20% off at check out.
Have a question, send me a DM or email. I'd love to connect and answer any questions you have.
You can find the show on any platform you listen to your podcasts!
Don't forget to click on that subscribe button and leave a 5-star review, so you're notified when new episode drop every week.
Questions about diabetes, don't hesitate to reach out:
Podcast Disclaimer: Nothing that you hear on The Healthy Diabetic Podcast should be considered medical advice or otherwise; please always consult your medical TEAM before making any changes to your diabetes management
Welcome back to the Healthy Diabetic Podcast. As always, I'm your host, coach Ken Kenness. Before we get started, please remember that nothing that you hear on this podcast should be considered medical advice or otherwise. Please always consult your medical team before making any changes to your diabetes management. Alright, we're just going to dive right into it. You guys know that this podcast has been around for a while, going on three years. Thank you to all of you who keep listening. Please share this podcast.
Speaker 1:I say it every single week because I think it's something that is really important that these conversations get shared to the people that need it. These conversations are found by the people that need them, so if you can think of one person that you know is going to want to hear these conversations, want to hear this episode, I'm really excited to sit down and record this, because I have dealt with this myself over the past couple months and I really want to share this experience with you guys, because it doesn't happen to me very often, but I know it happens to a lot of us living with diabetes. So this topic is probably going to hit close to your heart or hit close to your management style, however you want to kind of talk, however you ever kind of want to say it, but I'm really excited to talk about this. So please make sure that you share this podcast with someone Like. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a five star review. It helps the podcast grow. Thank you very much for being here.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's just get into this, because I'm super pumped about this. This has happened to me over the past I don't know a couple months and it's happened before, but it really doesn't happen that often. And this is this concept of do you actually trust your CGM, right? You've heard me talk on this show so many times how important these continuous glucose monitors are, how powerful they are, how much data and understanding and knowledge we can get from these devices. But at the end of the day, these devices are not fallible, right? They're not 100% accurate all the time, and over the past couple months, I've been dealing with a lot, a lot, of fluctuating blood sugars. I've got everything under control, but I've dealt with a lot of fluctuating blood sugars, as most of you probably have as well. There's always times in our diabetes where it's just like we're going through our checklists and just things aren't clicking, and I have dealt with that over the past couple of months. I've really dealt with it over the past couple of weeks over the last two DEXCOM CGMs. If you aren't familiar with the DEXCOM, it's a continuous glucose monitor that you wear on your persons, anywhere on your body and it gives you 24, 7 data. And I believe I'm on the G6, which I believe it is updated to your phone or wherever you're getting that information every three to five minutes. The G7, I think, might be even better than that. So these things are important, right, we don't have to keep hammering that home or hammering home with that. These devices are very important. So over the last couple weeks really the last I would say 20 days, because it's been the last two sensors that I've had on my blood sugar has just been all over the place.
Speaker 1:And I think there's really two things to kind of dive into here. One, this question of do you trust or should you trust your CGM all the time? Every single time you look at it and the answer is no, you shouldn't trust it every single time. And what I mean by that is, for me it's become this really interesting feeling, right, if I'm kind of high and I see a number, but I know in the back of my head. I have awareness, I know in the back of my head. Well, I didn't eat a lot of food in the past two hours and I covered for that food and even if I didn't give myself enough, there's no way I should be 300 right now. No way I should be 300. When I was 120, as an example under, I was in range. I'm in range in these, in these moments that I do not trust the CGM.
Speaker 1:And I'm looking at this thing. It's 250, 260, it keeps creeping up. It's got that nice good trend arrow up. It's not rising fast, but it's rising. So what do I do? Well, first thing, I'm doing the first thing I do in these situations, or the first thing I am ending up doing, which isn't always the best decision. Right is rage-ballasting, it's being very aggressive with the correction. Okay, let me give myself a little more insight. Let me give myself another. You know I got a unit and a half on board as an example. Let me give myself another unit, or two units, and just see what it does If it doesn't do anything. Now I got to go through my checklist. Now I got to go through my steps.
Speaker 1:Okay, two hours later starts dropping just a little bit, but it's still hovering. It's still hovering between that, you know, 250, 260, maybe 270, and it's not really going anywhere. And I'm continuing to bulls. I'm continuing to bulls and then all of a sudden this number just shoots down to like 120, 130. Just shoots down Not over the span of five minutes, but over the span of maybe half hour. And this is the point where I know, okay, well, I'm not getting the right reading on the CGM, I'm not getting the correct reading. I know I'm not getting a correct reading on the CGM. And this isn't the only example of this. I'm sure you guys have multiple examples of something like this happening.
Speaker 1:And then, really, over the past two sensors, there's two things that have happened. The first thing is that the number has been off anywhere from, I don't know, 20 milligrams per deciliter, which isn't that big of that. That's not that big of a gap, I believe, according to DEXCOM I think they say it's it's like anything at 15 milligrams per deciliter or over, maybe a little bit more. That's when maybe you have to calibrate it. That's when maybe you need to think about doing a finger stick or or maybe changing on a sensor If that continues.
Speaker 1:But my stupidity. I just keep the sensor on and I got to like day seven, day eight on both of these sensors because I'm I was very stupid in this aspect and I didn't change out the sensor. And hindsight, I should have just changed out the sensor the first time, because what happens when you have to do that? If you don't finish the whole 10 days, what happens? Oh well, dexcom is an amazing company, so what do they do? You just call them, or even now you can do it from your phone and you just order another one. You tell them what happened, I'm just getting bad readings, whatever, and they'll ship you out another sensor within 24 to 48 hours. Done. But sometimes we don't do the smart thing. We do the thing that we think that I'm a problem solver, I think I can solve this problem. So In both of these sensors I think I probably calibrated I don't know probably 5, 6, 7, 8 times the G6 and the G-Sense 7, I don't even think the G7 you can calibrate anymore because it's supposed to be so good.
Speaker 1:But the G6 is what I'm on. You're not really supposed. You don't really need to calibrate that much. You shouldn't have to calibrate all the freaking time and I feel like I was calibrating so many times.
Speaker 1:There was one point where the number was off from a finger stick. So that's the other thing. I know the number is off because I'm finger sticking right. If I don't trust the number, I'm finger sticking right now, right away, because I need to know what the real number is, because if I have to be aggressive and bolless and correct, then I'm going to do that. So there's been a couple times when that number has been 60, 70, 80 mg per deciliter off. That's insane. No amount of calibration is going to bring that back into where it's going to need to be. I think in that instance I had to calibrate two other times. So I had to calibrate twice and the span of four hours and then it finally came back and ended where it was supposed to be. But I think like 24 hours later it was off again. It was off by 20, maybe 25 mg per deciliter and it really shouldn't be off that much.
Speaker 1:Again, I think the standard for the Dexcom again don't quote me on this, but I think the standard is 15, you know what 1 to 15 g per deciliter is sometimes when it could be off from a finger stick, and that's the other thing that we have to think about. I was like, how are we measuring if this thing is off or not? Well, it's by finger stick or whatever. However, else you can measure your blood sugar from not a CGM, and I'm pretty sure it's a finger stick. So this is the other thing that I think is really important to think about when I think about these CGMs is these again, these are incredible, incredible devices that we need 100%.
Speaker 1:If you're not on a CGM, you need to talk to your doctor to get on one. It does not matter which one you get on, because all three of them, you know, if I guess, if we're not counting Medtronic's sensor, the Guardian, which I can't say anything good or bad about the Guardian, because I haven't used that sensor in God since so long, probably 10 years. So I've heard good things, I've heard bad things, but, just like the Dexcom, I've heard good things and bad things, just like the Freestyle Libre, after good things and bad things. So these are things that we have to think about all the time, and I think it's a really interesting thing because I ask myself all the time do I trust this number? Do I trust this number?
Speaker 1:You know, there's been times on lows right, I just talked about highs there's been times on lows where my alarms are going off because the CGM says I'm 46, with a trending arrow down or a steady arrow to the side, but I'm really 89, I'm really 90, I'm really 100. So this can be a really tricky thing, especially for lows, especially if you have severe lows, and just making sure that you have a backup plan all the time. You need to always have your glucose monitor as a backup. I carry my glucose monitor with me in my bag everywhere I go, every single where I go, because I always have my computer and all my work stuff. I always have that glucose monitor.
Speaker 1:The other thing I would say to that is with pumps, right, do we always trust that a pump's working in the way it should be? No, we don't. Pumps are not 100% accurate as well, right? So if you're having problems with sites, if you have problems with your brain fart, if you're having problems with your scar tissue or if you have tons of scar tissue like me, it's starting to become a little bit more difficult to use my abdomen because I've used it so many times, even though I feel like I have a really good strategy of using my abdomen, you know, starting from the very left side of the oblique and working my way towards the belly button, moving up about an inch, maybe half an inch to an inch above that line that I just did, and then going up and then going back over and then switching to the other. I mean I literally can use my abdomen and have 40 different sites on it.
Speaker 1:But saying that, I've done that so many times that it's starting to become hard, I can tell that I'm starting to be a little bit insulin resistant. I got some scar tissue buildup or whatever. So I am starting to give my abdomen a long, long overdue break. But I'm still using my sensor in that spot and the last two sensors that I've had that have not worked the way they really should be working in terms of the number it was in my abdomen. So I don't know.
Speaker 1:I like to use a tricep for both. Because I'm on the Omnipot as well, I like to use the tricep for both. It works really really well. I get some really good readings. But there's other places too that I'm trying out and the thought process of do you trust your Technology, do you trust your CGM, do you trust your pump.
Speaker 1:It's a very serious thing that I never really took, I never really thought about and I took for granted Like, of course, why would I not trust this thing? 99% of the time it's right, 99% of the time it works the way it's supposed to. But that 1% could be really, really a really big issue and I can see that. I can 100% see that even over the last two weeks with me, when I've got a number that says I'm 89, or I've got a number that says I'm super low, like 46, 45, 50, but then I'm really 70. And then, on the flip side, I've even had the other way. I've had, well, the number says I'm like, you know, 110, 90 maybe, and a trending error down, but really I'm like 70, I'm 65, and I'm trending down. It could be a really big, really big problem.
Speaker 1:So make sure that you are understanding this concept. And how do we deal with this? Well, we deal with it from some of the stuff we talked about making sure we have a glucose meter as a backup, making sure that you have your load treatments 100% all the time ready to rock and roll. That is your A, your A load treatments and your B load treatments. If you don't know what I'm saying, here you go. Here's a quick tutorial. Here's a real quick tutorial on this. Your A treatments is whatever you're using for load treatments that are healthy, that are gonna be good for you. That isn't just crap that like. For me it's fruit 100% Bananas, love them, love bananas. Laura bars are really good. They got 27 grams of carbs but it's a very, very slow. It's a very slow buildup of carbohydrates because it's just dates and cashews. That's all it is. So that is my strategy when dealing with lows. I'm gonna use fruit and I'm gonna use something that's very healthy for me, because I value quality and health above all.
Speaker 1:My B strategy for dealing with lows is if I'm in a really sticky situation and I might pass out, or if I'm super low and I'm incoherent. My wife, everyone around me, myself, if I am coherent knows that I need to bring this up and that I don't really care. I do not care what I need to get in my system. I'm getting it now. If I need to do juices, the juice box or whatever it is, I don't care what it is. That's my strategy when dealing with lows. I have an A strategy and I have a B strategy. Now, if you're someone that typically does liquids, awesome, I think that's a great idea. That is a great idea to deal with lows with liquids, especially for those of you who have a really hard time with lows and either are incoherent or maybe you are in a risk of passing out, or there's just so many people that are like that.
Speaker 1:I can relate to that on a personal level because I have. I believe I have what's called hypoglycemic unawareness and hyperglycemic unawareness. I was 46 today because I worked out and didn't eat anything before because it was just gonna be a little small thing. I was just going out and doing some real easy lifts that I wanna just get in before. I had to leave the gym today and come home and I dropped to 46. And if it wasn't for the CGM, I would've never known, because I didn't feel anything. I felt like a main box. I felt a little bit, a little bit out of it, losing focus a little bit, but other than that, I wasn't sweating, I wasn't like shaking, I wasn't like slurring words, I wasn't falling over, nothing like that.
Speaker 1:So could the CGM is in that instance, it helped me a lot because One, because I didn't feel bad. I Didn't believe the number. And this is the other aspect, or the other part of the you know the other side of this coin of Do we trust these numbers? And also, if you don't trust it and you test and it's actually really good, then you know that that's a good thing that you have that backup. So I tested and it was. It was it? The CGM said 46 and I bludged my blood sugar meter. My finger prick said 45. It's like, okay, I think I had point three units on board. No, that's not doing much right now or it's not doing much in that in that Time frame, because most of that insulin's probably probably all gone. So I ended up eating banana 20 minutes later. I was good because that's part of my strategy.
Speaker 1:So you have to build your own strategy. Have an a strategy, have a B strategy. If you're a strategy is just some food that you like or some candy or whatever it is. But your B strategy is like, hey, I can't actually eat anything because I'm I'm like that I'm not gone, or I'm like that, like I'm not, I just can't physically eat something. Then a hundred percent, let's get some liquids in you, whatever that might be, if you have, if you have a glucometer or not a glucometer, but if you have a specific glucose Glue, glucometer kid or glucose kit that you can get some glucose right now awesome.
Speaker 1:The really cool thing that I have seen is Epi pens. But they're they're glucose Epi pens. So that's a really cool thing too now, because we don't have to, you know, draw out the glucose and like mix it and All this stuff to give ourselves a shot to bring ourselves back up. We can just use, literally use like an Epi pen, stick ourselves and you're good to go. So there's all these Incredible ways to help us with low blood sugars. There's all these incredible strategies that I have heard about and things that I don't even use in my Management style that I think would be really cool to start experimenting with.
Speaker 1:That work for highs. So what, what works for you is the biggest thing that I am constantly talking about. What works for you? Awesome. I hope this was illuminating. I hope that you have some type of strategy for your lows and you don't just carry around candy and you don't just carry around crap. That's not good for you.
Speaker 1:I promise you guys the better quality of food that you're consuming as a diabetic and not even just as a diabetic, but as a human being the better blood sugars you will have, I guarantee it. I guarantee it if you are eating good quality, wholesome foods and not just crap and processed and artificial flavors, artificial chemicals, artificial preservatives. If you're not eating tons of that stuff and you're eating wholesome foods, your blood sugars will love you, they will love you, they will love you, they will love you. So take that. If you take nothing else from this episode, take that please, please, take that home. My door is always open to talk about these nutrition things, these food things.
Speaker 1:Like food has become such a powerful thing for me For ever since I've been diagnosed, I've been like about wholesome foods because I've been a coach. I've been a personal trainer, a strength coach, diabetes coach like I've been a coach for so long. So the value of wanting quality food to eat has always been a part of my DNA. But learning about it over the past year has been super impactful and I feel like I understand it on such a deep level in terms of building a strategy not the biochemistry, like I understand the biochemistry. But that's not what you need. You need strategies. You need a strategy to help you. That's why I created my diabetes master course. It's been such a fun journey to take so many people and talk to so many people about food, because it is so powerful and your blood sugars will just love you. They will love you. I'm telling you. They will love you. Okay, that's my rant, but okay.
Speaker 1:So when you think about your CGM, when you think about your technology, make sure that you have a plan B and maybe even a plan C in place. Always care actually supplies. If you're on the Omnipod, like me. The other day at the gym, I literally put on a new Omnipod and then I went to the gym and it was walking through a doorway and ripped it off and I was stupidly didn't have an extra one with me because I had just changed it. I don't need to take an extra one. Always have extras, no matter what. I'm telling you. Always have extras, no matter what. Don't do as I do, do as I tell you to do, all right, well, thank you again for joining me for this.
Speaker 1:These are like really fun little short snippets of things that's constantly on my mind and I'm constantly talking to people about. I was thinking about this the other day and I really wanted to talk to you, talk about it on the podcast, because it just became so. It just hit me so hard when I'm sitting there trying to calibrate three or four times More than that four, five, six, seven, eight times over the span of 10 days and it's not doing what I want it to do. It's not getting as close as it should be, getting to a finger stick, but then me stupidly leaving it on and not just taking it off. So what? What is cause? That's the other thing. That's actually, yeah, that's the other question I would have for you.
Speaker 1:Do you have a? Whether it's the Dexcom, whether it's the Guardian, whether it's Nutrisense, whether it's the Abbott, freestyle Libre, do you have a set day within that timeframe the Dexcom's 10 days? Within that 10 days, do you have a set timeframe of when you will change it if it's not working the way you want it to? If the numbers aren't, aren't you know calculating the way you want it to? If you're, just if you know, it's probably a bad site, whatever it is, do you have a day? Is it day three? Is it day four? Is it 24 hours of dealing with that? Is it 48 hours of dealing with that? I would think probably it. For me it's probably a 24 to 48 hour thing, but I don't always follow it, so I'd be curious to know from you guys what yours is.
Speaker 1:Do you have a thought process behind that? Do you constantly say, okay, this is not working the way it's supposed to. I'm on the G6 and I've calibrated two times in the past six hours and it's still not calibrating the way it needs to be calibrated. I'm gonna wait another 24 hours, I'm gonna wait another 10 hours, I'm gonna see what happens and then I'm gonna change it out. I wish I would have done that. These last two sensors I really wish I would have done that would have saved me so much headache and frustration. We gotta make diabetes easier, not more difficult. Things like this we can control. We can control how long we keep a CGM on. We can control how long we keep a pump on. We can control where if you're on MDI, where you give those shots, you have way more options if you're on MDI where you can give a shot. So I think these are important things to think about and I hope that this episode resonated with you and I hope you caught some really good nuggets out of this.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening. Make sure you share that podcast with someone that is special to you that you know is gonna get value out of this. If you're looking for more guidance and support and education, my door is always, always open. Please DM me on Instagram. You can DM me on the podcast's page, the healthy diabetic pod, or you can DM me on my business page, where I talk or I post so much about diabetes on Coach Ken. The E in Ken is the number three, so if you just you know search my name, ken Kines, it should come up as Coach Ken. So, anyways, dm me, ask me questions, reach out.
Speaker 1:I'm here to help all of you because I never had that when I was first diagnosed. If you're newly diagnosed within the last two years, I'm willing to bet that you are struggling or you haven't figured this condition out. If you have hands down to you, that's freaking amazing. Post your success, because we all wanna see what you're doing. So if you figured out this condition, post that on Instagram, tiktok, snapchat, facebook, I don't care what it is. Post it because people need to know. People need to know how to be successful and every person that we see that is successful. Every story that we hear that's a success story. Every story we hear that's not a success story gives us information to make our lives easier with diabetes, and that's what it's all about. So it's all about people making your life easier with diabetes. All right, I'm gonna stop talking, I'm gonna get off here. I will see you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.