It was quite entertaining knowing it wasnt going to work and he would have to do it all over again each time he did it wrong. -blood didnt fill the strip properly and ruined it -waited too long and blood started coagulating -didnt prep the reader with the test strip before putting in blood
As a Type 1 diabetic of over 20 years, it was fun to watch this. Those of us with the condition have all been there and continue to go, every day even! If it's of interest, one can wear the dexcom on other parts of the body. Most notably the rear of the arm / tricep area. On top of, there are overlaying flaps of skin-tape one can cover the sensor with, helping keep it attached. Lastly, if you find your sweat / hair / whatever causes it to detach, look into a product called skin-tac and shave the hair.
I agree, it cracked me up about jumping into cold water! I wear the medtronic pump, but I stopped wearing the cgm as when I sweat, it'd fall off. T1D for 33 years now, tech now days is getting a lot better! 🙌
Yeah those two strips filled while not plugged into the meter just had me in tears. Glad he finally read the manual. Also if sweat is an issue look into a product called Driclor or any of its analogues (can’t remember the other brands but there’s a few)…it’s a spray or a roll-on thing that just has aluminum salts & rubbing alcohol, so basically an antiperspirant without all the waxes and oils and moisturizers that are in stick-form, cause those will make the sensor not stick. I let it sit on my skin for 6-12 hours and then make sure it’s fully wiped off (it leaves a powdery residue behind which will cost you a sensor if you don’t wipe it off)….boom, you don’t sweat under your sensor and it will stick on.
I work for a tool and die company that manufactures the injection molds for these Dexcom devices. I remember having to make those big EDM electrodes to burn the shape of the sensor applicator. It's always really cool being able to see the real life uses of these products. Great video as always!
My buddy at work was complaining to me about how many failed attempts he had using the strips, he had the pricker set to max and was placing the blood on the top of the strip, it was only when it accidently traveled to the end of the strip and got in the right place, poor guy had been mangling his finger tips:) Fasting got me from 240lbs to 170lbs, a normal blood sugar level and off of metformin.
If you can keep that metformin and secondary affects, keep taking it. It does a hell of a job along with mTor in keeping your cells in an OCD state where they keep spring cleaning a lot of the crap waste that cells generally store inside the cells while in a 'Feast" cycle where carbs are plentiful.
Testing meters take the inkjet printer approach to business. You get the device relatively cheap, but they got you bent over a barrel when it comes to the consumables that have no substitute. Don't have the diabeetus myself, but I used to work as a pharmacy tech a number of years ago.
Speaking as a husband with a T1D wife we get really angry with these biohacks. She's dead without this equipment and it's on back order in the USA, so we're picking up the day of replacement.
@@mattgayda2840that sucks, I'm T1 and in the UK and you can not get any of the CGM (Dexcom, Libre) without a prescription from your Doctor, we also do not have to pay for any of our sensor's or medication with or with out private medical insurance, it must be extremely hard for you guys in the USA.
I was over 410# 12 years ago. No diabetes but high bp and lipids and fatty liver. Got into weight watchers lost 200 by portion control and exercise and haven’t looked back since
fasting would help majorly with fatty liver. Water or protein fasting (just shakes for a week like they do bariatric surgery patients to shrink the liver to be safer for surgery)
Have you tried being too poor to afford food? Ive gained about 30 lbs in 10 years. Mostly due to me making more money. Making 12$ an hour and living off free food from the restaurant I worked at I weighed 130 lbs. Now i make 40$ and Im 160 lbs. Coincidence? I think not!
55 years old. Decided it was time to stop taking pennies out of the jar and start putting them in. Kicked alcohol on March 1. Then by July 1 went 100% meat diet. Only ruminant animals, butter and eggs. Zero sugar, zero carbs. All blood numbers perfect. My weight has dropped to where I was at age 18, no bloating, no more fatigue, no brain fog, huge energy at the gym, sleep better. Wife (53 yo) was skeptical at first, but after two months of watching these results, she joined me. She has always eaten like a bird to maintain her trim figure and in my mind she was a bit malnourished. Now she eats well every day and, for the first time in years she has stopped counting calories. We eat two meals, one at around 11 am to 1pm and another at 7pm.
Eating only meat you have to make sure to intake enough fat so the eggs and butter are a good plan. Results of only eating meat that is too lean are "protein poisoning"
IF worked for me 10 years ago (hadn't realized that until I just checked). I lost ~40 pounds and have stayed within 10, usually 5, of my target since. I had crept up a bit by covid year 3 but a 3 day fast (after some stomach malady) this spring seemed to reset things and I'm back on track again. I've always wondered whether this continuous blood sugar monitoring would give useful insight into eating ... based on your tests here I'd say I'll wait a while for the technology to get simpler. And the $10 a day is a significant disincentive. Thanks for sharing your journey (will have to go looking for that old video too).
I’ve been a type 2 diabetic for about 15 years and I’ve been on the G6 Dexcom for about 2 years now. I’ve had quite an education on what causes my glucose to spike, and how high my glucose was getting while I slept at night. I’ve been on the two types of insulin for about 2 years now as well, but I think the Ozempic and the Dexcom were just as important to helping me understand and control my numbers. Finally got my A1C consistently under 7 for about the past year and a half.
My 3yo son was just diagnosed with type one diabetes this past April, the blood test strip were a real pain we would often get no reads for not having enough blood on the strip. We switched to the dexcom a week ago and it has been a great improvement so far.
As someone with type 1 a massive help is a thing called DAFNE Dose Adjustment for Normal Eating, it's basically teaches you how to have a normal life with T1, eat what you want and keep stable bloods and it makes life easier. I can also recommend trying the libre sensors also they are a bit smaller last 14 days and you can put them on 24/48 hours before starting them, this is a big help in reducing the issue where the body see the sensing teather as a kinda forigen body messing with correct BG readings. You also don't have to calibrate the libre so no finger pricks. If you have any questions that I might be able to help with let me know, I hope that by the time your boy is my age there will be a simple cure for T1. Best of luck for you and your lad.
My 5 year old was diagnosed a few months ago. We immediately got her a g7. It’s been a great help, but it’s not bulletproof. A lot of calibration. But the nurses at her school can get the readings as well as us so it does reduce some of the anxiety of sending her there. We’ve been following the research they are doing on curing this. Some things seem promising so hopefully she won’t have to deal with this the rest of her life. Her is mounted to the back of her arm, she really has adjusted to it and doesn’t seem bothered by it. It’s amazing how kids that young adjust. I don’t think it would be so easy for me.
Back around the turn of the century, I was the Systems Engineer for a "minimally invasive" (oxymoron?) continuous glucose monitor being developed by TheraSense (bought by Abbott) in Alameda, CA. I was also a test subject for some of the early prototypes. Now, I was a very lean long distance runner at the time who bought into the once-popular practice of carbo-loading. But my 10-day blood glucose curve looked like a roller coaster track. Huge spike after eating a bagel followed by diving as low as the low 50s. Wearing that monitor caused me to radically change my diet.
@@JohnDoe-zl6qw Better balance of protein, fat, and carb. e.g. replaced breakfast of cold cereal that I had eaten for decades with a casserole made of eggs, some meat, a bit of cheese, some veg, and cubed bread. My wife says it's called strata. Now I get a very wide and not very tall mound of glucose on the graph versus a sharp spike of up and down. The aha moment back then was seeing the huge difference in the glucose graph between eating a bagel (looked like the Matterhorn) and eating a burrito from a genuine mex taqueria (a gentle rolling hill).
I have wondered about the “carb loading” protocol of the 80’s, seeing it as a teenager. I have since seen a slender great uncle who ran marathons back then die in his mid 60’s. My guess, is that he was highly insulin resistant even though he looked slender and healthy.
I think the iPhone 15x will probably include the iPrick. You'll stick it in your abdomen and your phone or watch will just dictate your exercise and caloric / glucose intake as needed.
Type 1 diabetic here. I've been using the Dexcom sensor/transmitter for about a year now. For me, they have worked very well and are a game changer. I find the back of my upper arm (roughly the triceps area) is a good place to insert the sensor as long as you don't put it directly into the muscle. This keeps it mostly out of the way, comfortable, and not subject to knocking into things. I found attaching it in the stomach area was very itchy and drove me crazy. Good luck.
@@mightygrom near your collar bone??!! i keep mine on the tricep area aswell. I couldn't imagine putting it near my shoulder/chest.. is it on your chest side or more towards your upper arm?? I've been T1 for 28 years and never heard of anyone using that area before.
Type 2 diabetic here...☹ I went Carnivore/keto diet Dec last year and instantly fixed my high blood sugars problem... also lost 5 inches in waist size... still progressing as i need to drop more weight.. Highly recommend it!👍 Doctor Ken Berry on RU-vid is worth watching...😉
I fast regularly. It's how we evolved as cavemen. You eat when the tribe gets a kill and the rest of the time you might not get much. I'm 47 and everyone thinks I'm in my mid 30s. I think that's a win.
Hey there! Diabetic and dexcom wearer here. Fun fact: you can reset each sensor for way past it's standard 10 days. I frequently get thirty days each, with nary a false reading. This can be done by wedging a small thin thing (like a test strip) to open the latches on the transmitter. Also, consider getting some overtape if you plan to wear one for a while!
At least they fixed the problem of the inserter not releasing! Having to rip out a brand new sensor while still attached was glorious fun I experienced four times
Now the G7 is totally disposable so we can't reset them, they have starving families to feed n all so getting 10 more days out of a sensor was stealing food off their table
There's a systemic problem with the recent get rich quick... errrr.... lose weight schemes. People have gone to this stuff for the weighloss. However, this group of drugs was originally developed for blood sugar control. Those of us that need them for their original use (versus I just wanna skinny up for summer) can't get them. Soccer mom down the street is looking trim. Meanwhile, I've been waiting a month and a half to get a refill.
If you go on a fast, also measure your Ketones - before, during and after - with one of those Ketones prickers. It's quite interesting to see how your body switches to fat burning and it maintains that, if you leave the carbs off your plate.
T1D, using Dexcom since the G4 years and years back when they first came to Canada. These G6s are very accurate after one calibration and despite the app nagging for repeat calibrations I have one that I have been using for over a year without calibrating across sensors which is still within 0.5mmol/L. The transmitter uses a button cell battery that can be dremel’d out and a new one soldered then epoxied in. Saves on the cost. With third party apps (Xdrip) you can use a sensor for as long as it sticks on your body, rather than the 14d time period.
You may already know this but just in case: the G6’s are approved to work without calibration, but they give you the option to do it if the sensor readings are way off. However the downside (as you have discovered) is that once you calibrate a sensor it will nag you for additional calibrations for the rest of the sensor life. I’ve only had one G6 sensor over the last 2 years that needed calibration, thank goodness, but I suspect that YDMMV. Finally, the Anubis hacked transmitters have reflashed the firmware so the transmitter life is 6 months, a 50 min warmup time instead of 2 hours, and it has a replaceable battery (you still have to epoxy or sugru it into place but if you’re already used to transmitter surgery it really isn’t hard). I might be misremembering but I think it also allows for sensors to be restarted without removing the transmitter…I never have a sensor last more than 10 days so I haven’t ever made use of that feature but it’s a nice one if you are able to extend sensor life.
All these years, Mr. vE... And you're a friggin _Cyborg?_ If we knew you didn't identify as anything other that *Chuck O' Canadian Man Beef,* _I surely would've asked you to post this sooner!_ Beep Boop Fellow Cyborg!
having stuck myself many times with a lancet, I get the initial fear. I'm not sure approaching myself with a pocket knife is less scary, but the devil you know, I guess. :) Entertaining video, thanks. I've been running a G6 for over a year now. Generally they don't hurt. I think maybe 3 times out of the 40 or so that I've inserted, I've hit a nerve with the jeezlus thing, and let me tell you brother that stings!
Technology has sure come a long way. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1978. Back then you had to pee into a test tube that had a chemical reagent and look for a color change to indicate you were "spilling" glucose (blood sugar was "high"). Diabetes is no fun, but there are worse things, for sure.
lmao - you’ve gotta push the lancet down on your finger with a bit of pressure and then press the button. Stop pricking your finger with a knife! If you have diabetes then you can’t afford all that scar tissue on your fingers - the lancets are bad enough
T1D since 1986, and been injecting various flavours of insulin and doing finger prick tests ever since. I started using the Freestyle Libre2 a couple of years ago and it's pretty good: nice and small and unobtrusive on the back of my arm, and the sticky is REALLY sticky. Each sensor happily survives 2 weeks of showers, getting sweaty, swimming, etc, and after all that it still fights removal and needs a dab of goo-gone to get rid of the residue. And that they've been able to get all that functionality into such a little thing! The Libre3 is even smaller, too. Amazing. What annoys me is how much stuff ends up in the bin - the sensor comes in its own special plastic tub, the applicator (plastic with metal parts inside), the sensor itself (e-waste including a battery, but no chance of recycling because, having had bodily fluids in it, it's now bio-waste as well). At least I can recycle the cardboard box the kit comes in and the unread instruction/warning leaflet.
It's pretty easy to disassemble the whole applicator for recycling. Only the needle needs treated as contaminated and goes in a clinical sharps disposal bin. There's a good video on RU-vid.
If you have a good insertion site, you can carefully pop the transmitter out of the sensor. Wait 25 minutes and pop it back in for another 10 days. You will need to save/remember the code from the sensor.
I was kinda expecting this video to go like this: *Measures bloodsugar correctly* "Over thirty? Why yes I am!" "... that's bad, isn't it?" And next video is about getting diagnosed with diabetes For the record: I am not a diabetic, I live with someone who is, so factual accuracy might be questionable
Been a fan of the channel for a few years now. I've had type 1 diabetes for 25 years. I was beyond excitement when I got the notification from RU-vid with your name and anything to do with dexcom. The noise really is the worst part with the sensor as long as you get a clean entry. The last one I put in bled for a minute before I installed the transmitter. Lots of blood leaving my body through the years I remember being really young and worrying I would run out one day 😂
18 Year T1D here, I had the exact same excitement. Incase anyone reads this, It leaves a little gold filament under your skin and that gold filament reacts with glucose and what not creating a few microamps, which is interpreted by the Dexcom transmitter and a glucose reading is produced.
Do some research on a carnivore diet and intermittent fasting. That is what I have been doing for over 2 years now. It works fantastic for body weight optimization. My wife does the same thing and we have both lost many pound sand we both feel so much better with our health.
Fasting works, I went on intermittent fastng eating once a day, strict keto. Lost 22 lb in 10 weeks. Then I backed off the fasting a little and have now kept the weight off for 8 months now. 184cm an 78kg. I feel young again.
HOW??? HOW do you know? I got myself a freestyle glucose meter today just to try it out to satisfy my interest and now you upload a video about a dexcom xD Love it xD
I'm T1 and been using the freestyle libre from the when the released the first one. I can highly recoment putting it on your chest /pec area, like and inch high and an inch towards the middle of you chest away from your nipple. It will stick better, stay on better, less likely to get bumped, easer to scan/read, easer to apply /remove and it gives a more accurate reading.
It was painful to see you resort to the blade over the spring-loaded pricker mechanism. I got a glucose tester off amazon a few years back that came with 100 strips for ~$50, so maybe there some Canadinflation stuff going on about pricing. The pricker depth was adjustable so that it just felt like a kid flicked your finger, and a bead of blood only welled up if you squeezed it a bit. I sealed the pricks off with a smidge of cyanoacrylate just for caution's sake, but it wasn't bad at all in terms of pain.
I forgot I unsubscribed when you told me to. Only just realised I’d not seen anything from you for a while. Speaks volumes for why you shouldn’t smoke weed.
As a T1, thanks @AvE for doing this & bringing attention to the cost. We are treated like 💰 🐄. G7 is an even easier setup, both insertion & only 30min warmup. G7 is approved for back of arm, which doesn't hurt, but can be PITA to put on. The recommended sites are just what our FDA has approved, but essentially work most areas.
I mean exactly, just use the damn thing as designed? The ol' science guys spend good money to make it work! Maybe a case where RTFM is the best option...
Love your channel, learn something with a smile. You're right, diabetes is no joke and the finger pricks are the least of it. Diabetes creeps into your system and screws up organs, throws hormone balances out the window and lurks around destroying nerves, you never notice till you need them. And yes, even THOSE nerves!! The horrendousness of it all!
One easy early warning is feeling tired shortly after eating. Easy to differentiate between diabetes and just metablism by one day eating your normal and the next day eating a high protein/fat no/very low carb meal. If both workdays are about equal for work/stress/environment, and you don't feel tired after the high protein meal, then its most likely pre-diabetic insulin resistance, or Type 2 Diabetes.
Yeah It really is horrible. I recently started losing a bunch of weight by fasting to avoid it. Pretty much my entire family that are older are either diabetic or pre diabetic. With how I used to live I was on the way too and fast. I have seen too much of what it did to my loved ones first hand to fall down the same path. Down from 260 to 190, feeling so much better.
Funny thing about pricking your finger. They SAY you have to prick you finger, however I noticed I got the same reading multiple different time when I first tested finger pad, side of finger, and then inside wrist. Always so all 3 number match, so when I do need to test I just test on wrist. Not over the vein, and IIRC, last time I check the outside of my forearm and it was again the same. Alternative is I had to get it checked at the Dr's, and the nurse grabbed a finger just in front of the first digit, screezed it like a vise, stabbed me, and let go. Never felt anything but the 1/2 second pressure.
Colleague of mine has T1D. About 30 years old. Despite electronics warning him, nearly fell into a coma at work after missing lunch. Very difficult to get him to accept treatment. We're all tuned in around him now and keep checks on him throughout the day. Especially when he's become engrossed in his work.
I'm expecting now AvE is going to fabricobble his own model, probably using a PLC. And then Makita is going to make their own, which takes Makita batteries of course. Then DeWalt is going to make one that sucks
Interesting, I basically ended up doing intermittent fasting by accident. Recently started doing calisthenics. On about month 3. My body just doesn't seem to respond to anything... At least not quickly. I started counting calories years ago and VERY rarely will I eat more than 2k. The past couple years I have kind of been doing intermittent fasting by basically not eating anything until lunch 2:30 or so and eating dinner in the evening (which can be pretty late even 9 or 10pm sometimes) I do eat like a tiny snack pretty much soon as I get home before I exercise about 6pm. Graduated high school at 245 lbs. Started counting calories (with a significant deficit for the first year or so) Think I finally got to like 220lbs With 'intermittent fasting' and doing a bunch of burpee variations every week day I am at about 168-170. I think my body simply has a really delayed reaction for whatever reason. Funny because I remember that last video you had about intermittent fasting it was the first thing I had heard of it and was like... oh I just thought I was eating weird.
nothin better than dunkel bumblefunk on a quiet saturday morning, turn up the volume so you can hear, look outside and realize how many tools/empty beer cans you left outside in the back yard the night before
Is that two beeps, or three, or four, or six? Silence that high at 200...drops to 198 then back to BEEP BEEP 202 in twenty minutes OH FFS fine I'll bolus and be 60 by morning
This is exactly what I would tell everyone. I'm a type 1 diabetic, there's nothing I can do about it. Yet type 2? Just stop eating, and go for a walk! Suddenly you're perfectly healthy. So many people are addicted to food that is destroying their bodies. I have no respect for those people.
Hey AvE! Type 3c diabetic and Dexcom G6 user here. It works perfectly fine on the arm. I use the back of my tricep. Also yeah, the cost of things are difficult, try all of the equipment with two different kinds of insulin. You get used to the finger pricks in about a week. Ive knocked my dexcom off by walking by a door too quickly. Clipped it on the door and the whole thing ripped out, strongly discourage running in to things.
Another 3c in the wild! Yeah knocking the sensor off is a PItA, but I love my dexcom. Also being in the UK, I get all my treatment for free (well, paid out of taxation) so I don't need to stretch out the sensor life. Looking forward to the vidjeo of removing the sensor from a hairy belly. You only make that mistake once😮
Good pal of mine's dad is (I believe) a type-1 diabetic, and has some kind of insertable probe thing, and said that "the thing's revolutionary, because before you kinda had to have all these diets and other things, take meds at certain times and whatever else, but now you open your phone, check your levels, and do with that information whatever's required" As much as I hate little bits of silicon being put in random objects that don't need it (aka IoT), what said same bits of magic rock do for medicine is honestly incredible and is genuinely life-changing for a lot of people
As a Type II diabetic I am laughing my fucking ass off watching this. Let me know when you get to jabbing a needle in your belly every day. Oh and for the record, diabetes sucks!
He came to a conclusion that 7 days is probably more than enough, and that fasting 2-3 days every 2 weeks might be a better solution for him. He doesn't fast anymore though.
@@barabolak Once you hit days 3-4 fasting with water, you have to start adding a teaspoon of salt. Human body has a terrible time trying to retain salt/sodium, especially when fasting when low carb intake causes you to start shedding pounds and pounds of water. Pretty soon you've depleted excess sodium, then you deplete necessary sodium, and then as your bodies osmotic balance shifts to critically low sodium levels it is forced to shed even more water because of that low sodium, which then depletes your sodium level even more, and so on and so on. This is called Keto Flue when people first jump on Keto and after several days they start feeling like crap. Electrolytes aside, just a teaspoon of salt in water will get you back on your feet again in about 20-25 min.
Type II. 15 years. Metformin stopped doing its job. Went on Mounjaro. You're exactly right. For the first 60 days you're a little sick and don't want to eat. But if you're a real man and you tough it out it's nothing shy of amazing! I went from 223 lb to 188 lb and static. My A1Cs and blood chemistry overall is the best it's ever been! Don't be afraid of science!🎉🎉
I do at least 16 hours a day fasting, mostly 22, works great with my schedule. Between 16 and 24+ hours starts autophagy, sounds like lots of benefits of that
Keep it up. I've lost 75 lbs since mid april. I still have dry red wine every night. But I only eat two small meals. Low carb zero added sugar no fruit
I had a bit of a diabetes scare recently. Kept loosing my vision. Was absoloutly over the moon when I found out it was just migraines. Daily stabby jabby aint no joke partner.
5:11 Put it in a simple wood or plastic box, lined with sound dampening, etc.. In the box, put a common piezo transducer, to a T072 pre-amp, to a commodity small amplifier. Put a HI-Cut (just a capacitor and resistor) filter between the pre-amp and the power amp sections, and run that to a small speaker in a resonant chamber. This project is ideal for a 3D Printer. A USB Boost Converter can power it. Cheap USB power supplies typically have 2 outputs so you can charge your phone inside there, but the sound goes one-way, and the ultrasonic substances are contained within the reservoir tip.
I wish my graph looked like yours. Mine looks like the rocky mountains next to the grand canyon. I strap a small container on over the sensor, to keep it dry in the shower.
As a pharmacist, your foray into this world gave me hope. If Ol' Bumble... can figure this out -what with the weight loss and blood sugars - maybe theres hope for the rest of us idiots as well.
These have saved my sons life. My son was diagnosed three years ago and this has been a game changer with the pump. His A1C is always 5.4. Helps that his mom is a Nurse Practitioner that used to be the credentialed Diabetes Educator at our hospital. What were the odds that her son would be a type 1? My son is now 14 and he’s more mature than most people I know over 35. Can’t wait to see what the next advancements are with type 1. Their life depends on controlling it.
I, Type-I Diabetic, literally CANNOT get these in the United States, with any insurance company I've had with employers - or, they ask some absurd hundreds-per-box price that I, a blue collar worker, could laughably choose it or rent. Really sucks that some other people can just get 'em.
My wife pays 150/month without insurance for the Freestyle Libre 3. Using finger sticks can cost that much. She also uses less than 20 units of insulin total per day. Less than $300/month for all her diabetic supplies without insurance.
@@markc2643 Thankfully I am also in the lower range of insulin use, but no such luck with acquiring cheap supplies. Usually I pay out of pocket, get insulin on insurance and stockpile it when I can.
i have type 1 diabeetus and i use the dexcom g6 on my arm, i also use an insulin pump which has a tube coming out of me to a pump. im a walking robot with without the 5G network
Son-of-a-b**** my Bluetooth is starting to give out let me put some pictures back in there and get back to you 💋🇺🇲 pixies I love you dude 😎 outstanding machinist from the north. You are a rare breed 😉 I didn't send you the f-18 that I had in my hand but I gave it to somebody that I wanted to help! Damn landing gear. Still flying though! Are you guys done with your forest fires up there yet? I haven't check the maps app yet! I hope your chickens are doing well and you're cooking them. Appropriately of course cuz you still need eggs. LOL. Remember my first trip to harbor freight with your T-shirt. Outstanding 🙏 Love you All Stars
