Why?
Stock Tip: If you have a lot of hair-dye stock, I’d sell it now. If nothing else, Med-T just cured the grey-hair epidemic amongst parents of T1 children.
So I’m sure everyone can clearly see by now how mySentry might benefit the parent of a little type 1, especially at at night. Because now, thanks to the miracle of modern technology, these poor people might just get a full night’s sleep before their kiddo turns 18 and goes off into the world.
But I’m sure some of you are wondering why an adult type 1 like me would be interested in this system. After all, in essence, it’s just a remote monitor for a pump that’s not in motion. What possible good is it to an adult with diabetes?
Well, there’s really no delicate way to say this, so I’ll just jump in with both feet: I suffer from both a dysfunctional body and a dysfunctional marriage. My body is hypo unaware. I don’t feel my low blood sugars. At all. This is especially dangerous at night when I’m asleep, and that’s where my dysfunctional marriage comes into play. I sleep alone.
Now I don’t want to depress any of you single-but-looking, or divorced, T1s any more than you already are—but your mortality rates are shockingly higher than those of married type 1s (whose spouses sleep with them).
The reason? The nocturnal Hypo Reaper. Lows kill and they kill most often at night. Ask the spouse of any veteran T1 and I pretty much guarantee you that they’ll have a hair-raising nocturnal story or two of how they saved their T1’s bacon.
I’ve lived this long by making lots of compromises. The original garage door opener Guardian was loud enough to wake me in my sleep. After it was discontinued, the newer transmitters wouldn’t work with it. I liked the next generation of the Guardian a great deal, with its predictive alarms, trace screens that showed the pattern of blood sugar in a graphic way, and its ability to set different alarm thresholds at different times of the day. But her low voice led to some close calls. I ended up switching to the louder system made by Dex that lacked many of the features I liked.
Over time I’ve come to miss some of those features, as well as get burned out on the volume of gear I carry, and how poorly the various parts of my life support system talk to each other. As soon as I read about mySentry, I wondered if it could be the solution to my problem. Could it be a diabetes stereo system with a great amplifier?
Bottom line—I’m hoping mySentry will solve the volume issue that is Achilles Heel of the current Med-T CGMs. I hope it will make the system safe and usable for me.
That’s part of it.
And the other part? Well, I’m the original CGM guy! I didn’t want to miss out on the next chapter of CGM—the ability to send CGM data somewhere else in real-time and what we might do with that real-time data when it’s out of the box on our belts and into a box somewhere else.
Next time: Real-time disaster coordination and planning.
So I’m sure everyone can clearly see by now how mySentry might benefit the parent of a little type 1, especially at at night. Because now, thanks to the miracle of modern technology, these poor people might just get a full night’s sleep before their kiddo turns 18 and goes off into the world.
But I’m sure some of you are wondering why an adult type 1 like me would be interested in this system. After all, in essence, it’s just a remote monitor for a pump that’s not in motion. What possible good is it to an adult with diabetes?
Well, there’s really no delicate way to say this, so I’ll just jump in with both feet: I suffer from both a dysfunctional body and a dysfunctional marriage. My body is hypo unaware. I don’t feel my low blood sugars. At all. This is especially dangerous at night when I’m asleep, and that’s where my dysfunctional marriage comes into play. I sleep alone.
Now I don’t want to depress any of you single-but-looking, or divorced, T1s any more than you already are—but your mortality rates are shockingly higher than those of married type 1s (whose spouses sleep with them).
The reason? The nocturnal Hypo Reaper. Lows kill and they kill most often at night. Ask the spouse of any veteran T1 and I pretty much guarantee you that they’ll have a hair-raising nocturnal story or two of how they saved their T1’s bacon.
I’ve lived this long by making lots of compromises. The original garage door opener Guardian was loud enough to wake me in my sleep. After it was discontinued, the newer transmitters wouldn’t work with it. I liked the next generation of the Guardian a great deal, with its predictive alarms, trace screens that showed the pattern of blood sugar in a graphic way, and its ability to set different alarm thresholds at different times of the day. But her low voice led to some close calls. I ended up switching to the louder system made by Dex that lacked many of the features I liked.
Over time I’ve come to miss some of those features, as well as get burned out on the volume of gear I carry, and how poorly the various parts of my life support system talk to each other. As soon as I read about mySentry, I wondered if it could be the solution to my problem. Could it be a diabetes stereo system with a great amplifier?
Bottom line—I’m hoping mySentry will solve the volume issue that is Achilles Heel of the current Med-T CGMs. I hope it will make the system safe and usable for me.
That’s part of it.
And the other part? Well, I’m the original CGM guy! I didn’t want to miss out on the next chapter of CGM—the ability to send CGM data somewhere else in real-time and what we might do with that real-time data when it’s out of the box on our belts and into a box somewhere else.
Next time: Real-time disaster coordination and planning.
posted by Wil | 9:44 AM
1 Comments:
As a married Type 1 who often sleeps on the couch in order to avoid tossing and turning and disrupting the wife's sleeping... Yes, I concur. And when those Nocturnal Lows come at you, they come swinging with something fierce. Indeed. That is why I've also turned to the Dex alerts rather than the Med-T, as it's more quiet at night and doesn't pull me from my heavy sleep. Thanks for the review and great posts, Wil!
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