COVID 19 – I hope that you and your families are staying safe during the coronavirus. Please take care.
Let’s get into some technical stuff. Our bodies need a certain level of glucose to function properly, and dropping lower than that level can be dangerous. Hypoglycaemia, or hypo, is the medical term for low blood glucose.
A quick sugary snack can fix a hypo when symptoms are experienced. Sometimes I get a wee bit shaky and anxious feeling, sometimes I don’t. So I have sporadic, inconsistent, irregular, mysterious, “what on earth is going on” hypoglycaemia unawareness! Basically, I probably wouldn’t know if I was having a hypo.
There is the possibility that if I don’t eat a snack my glucose level could drop lower and lower causing………. let’s just say I will not be able to blog for a while. For this reason, glucose monitors can come in handy.
I wear a constant glucose monitor aka CGM. It’s a clever device, about the size of my thumb, that is stuck to my stomach all the time. It feeds info to my phone letting me know what my blood sugar level is and the direction it is heading.
My CGM is a G6 made by a company called Dexcom (DXCM (NASDAQ)). As my Dad says “if Gucci made a CGM the G6 is what it would look like”. I am not sure if he was referring to style or the cost.
I did tell my Dad about another option being the glucose dog. Service dogs for diabetics are specially trained to recognise a unique scent produced when a person is experiencing a hypo. They can touch the owner with their nose and jump onto their lap as a signal to alert the person of their hypo. They may also alert another family member or use a special device to dial the emergency services.
We already have 2 dogs in the family so unfortunately the application for a 3rd, even if it is a super smart glucose dog, was denied by management (Mum and Dad).
I have yet to look into training our mini schnauzers to be diabetic service dogs but as they sit here grooming themselves whilst I type, I think I better stick to my preferred GCGM (Gucci Constant Glucose Monitor)
Glucose upon publishing: 4.2mmol/L
Insulearning with Antonia 