CGM Download Reports

CGM therapy provides a great deal of analysis data that clinicians and patients can use to adjust therapies and management strategies. From daily trends, and overlay graphs, to bolus performance analytics and hourly average and variability reports.

Drawbacks & limitations to real-time CGM

Cost:

The primary drawback of CGM therapy is cost durable medical coverage of devices can be very poor, looking for pharmacy coverage options can be an important cost saving measure. Patients on Medicaid may also be restricted in CGM access.

Carrying a physical device:

Wearing a device makes one’s diabetes diagnosis more visible to others and can be a concern, particularly for teens or those who consider their diabetes status very private.

False alarms:

Alarms are helpful, but false alarms can be irritating or cause anxiety. This is particularly true of false low alerts. These often happen while sleeping when a CGM is lain on. We refer to these as “compression lows” and educating patients on how to avoid these with CGM placement is key. Setting alerts in useful but not intrusive levels is also important.

Inaccuracy:

Making treatment decisions based on inaccuracies of CGM data due to lag times and other issues can be troubling. For example we find that patients may not trust their CGM after a meal when a finger stick reads a higher value than their CGM. And patients are prone to over treating hypoglycemic episodes as CGMs tend to read low blood sugars at lower values and for longer durations than they actually occur. The delay in CGM reporting of post treatment BG elevation can lag up to 45 minutes leading patients to repeatedly intake unneeded carbs and experience an unwanted very high BG a “rollercoaster” that then often leads to over treatment for the high, and the cycle propels itself.

False sense of security:

CGM therapy can lead patients to have a false sense of security and take risks they otherwise might not, such as driving or performing other high risk tasks without confirming blood sugar levels or taking large boluses and risking hypoglycemia. 

Maintenance:

The user maintenance of keeping devices charged, and calibrations required of some systems is an added task in the already task heavy management of diabetes.

Decision-making based on trend information

So, what do you do with the information that CGMs give us? CGMs can give us alerts, accurate real-time blood glucose values, and trends. We can view these in the moment, or look at them over hours, days, weeks or months.

REAL-Time Trend Arrows help us make decisions about what, if any, actions should be taken by the wearer.

Looking at the pictures below we can see that:

One arrow up or down indicates a change of 1-2 mg/dl/min in the last 20 minutes.

Two arrows up or down indicate a change of more than 2 mg/dl/min in the last 20 minutes.

(arrows are only displayed if there has been at least a 1 mg/dl/min change in the last 20 minutes)