The Corner Booth

People with diabetes could be seeing a turning point in ease of obtaining supplies for continuous glucose monitors, as more of these products make their way into local pharmacies. While CGMs have traditionally only been available direct from the manufacturer or third-party supply distributors, they're now finally making their way onto the shelves of local pharmacies and even Costco stores around the country. For example, the Dexcom G6 receivers, transmitters, and sensors are  sold at discounted prices in Costco Pharmacies  for the bulk chain's member customers. Opinions may vary on just how good those discounts are, but another big benefit for customers is that instead of waiting weeks for supplies to arrive in the mail, you may be able to walk out the door of your local pharmacy in a day or two with everything you need. Along with Dexcom, the Abbott FreeStyle Libre system supplies are also available at pharmacies, and CGM maker Medtronic Diabetes is exploring pha...

It was New Year's Eve, but the celebratory spirit wasn't the only thing on the mind for some families using continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). In fact, it was quite the opposite when a Dexcom server crashed, leaving many in our Diabetes Community unable to see their CGM data stream or view shared data for remote monitoring. That was the case for Scott E. Kelly and his family in New York, who felt blindsided when the outage suddenly hit without warning from the California CGM manufacturer. Although Dexcom was working diligently over the holiday hours to fix the issue, the company unfortunately didn't communicate that to users out in the field. Kelly's 10-year-old daughter was diagnosed the day after her 5th birthday and has been using a Dexcom CGM with data monitoring on the phone app for several years now, with "amazingly wonderful" results, he says. But he sure wasn't happy with how everything played out over New Year's Eve. "I work...

My third-party supplier has recently tried to limit test strips for those using a Dexcom CGM system. In fighting this policy, I penned this letter. While I've been able to get more strips as prescribed, my hope is also that this letter leads to deeper consideration at the policy level by this Michigan company. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  --> August 6, 2018 Michael W. Hoskins ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------------- J&B Medical Supply --------- Wixom, MI 48393 Dear ------- and J&B Medical Supply: I am writing this in response to recent letters received from J&B Medical starting on July 24, 2018, regarding the allowable amount of glucose test strips for those who also use the Dexcom G5 continuous glucose monitor (CGM) as part of their diabetes management. Per your letter, “ all regular diabetic testing supplies are included in the coverage of your Dexcom G5 sensor .” And further, due to the Dexcom G5 b...

When you're going about your day and trying to juggle the stress with everything else, with a little help from your desktop baseball stress relief ball....  And your CGM suddenly screams for your attention... And you respond without hesitation: Be quiet, Asshole! Leave me alone. I don't have the time or energy right now to deal with a Low blood sugar. (((sigh))) And the moments continue to roll by, as Life is Interrupted by Diabetes once again. (((double sigh)))

Even with all my excitement about diabetes data-sharing and the very cool CGM in the Cloud hacking project, I've not been convinced this is the time for me personally to embrace that technology. In other words: in these times of #WeAreNotWaiting, it had pretty much been in the mindset that I Am Waiting and not signing on to this data-frenzy myself just yet. That is, until one day very recently when a severe hypo kicked me in the gut and changed my whole outlook on this. That experience pushed me over the edge in deciding that I am going to move forward with CGM in the Cloud. Yes, I think I'm going to jump into this cloud-universe, even though I still have concerns and don't know how long it will take me to get 100% up and running. CGM in the Cloud, For Dummies? Before I dig into the low that changed everything, let me explain that when I first started following all the chatter about this so-called Nightscout project this  summer, I hardly understood the basics of what i...

I took a couple airplane rides recently, the first since buying a Dexcom G4 CGM. Airport security was mostly hassle-free and not an issue, for the two airports I went through in my own city and then the higher-traffic one I was flying home from. They knew what my insulin pump was, and just did their thing swabbing it for possible explosives that only took a few minutes. No issues there. ( maybe because I'm currently using an Animas Ping that really does look like a medical device and is much more old-school retro looking, compared to modern-looking devices like the t:slim... ) My CGM was less understood. At both airports, the same comment came my way from a handful of security people: "All phones and iPods need to go in a bin and get scanned." My response: "It's not an iPod, it's a medical device." TSA responses varied -- "Oh." ( Read: Whatever. ) "Oh" ( with an exclamation point! ). "Really?!" ( ...