Tuesday, May 29, 2007

My Endo loves the Minilink!

I had a visit to my endo yesterday.

I wanted for about 45 minutes between the waiting room and the dr's office....but I did get to catch up on my magazine reading!

The appointment was about 7 minutes long, only because I was chatty....

Endo "you are not very interesting. every appointment it is the same old thing and nothing out of the ordinary"

Me "normally that would be an insult, but in this situation, I take it as good news"

Endo "Everything looks fine. Because of your history, you are categorized as a moderate risk for cardiovascular issues, your cholesterol levels are that of a low risk individual"

Me "Yippie!" (this was a concern of mine.....not that is changes how I eat, but still a concern!)

Endo "Your A1c could always be lower, but it is in a good range"

Me "I always strive for it to be lower.......every time I come in it is a little bit lower....."

So good news overall!

My endo was very supportive of the CGMS system - a big fan and appreciates its value! I of course praised the system as well and pulled out a few graphs from the carelink website....

I am not a fan of the carelink system. I tried to print off log books for my endo to see.....averages, trends etc - but I find the online carelink software impossible to use. For those of you who use carelink, I had to press retry about 25 times before the meter was read to 100%. I made it to 100% several times but then the program cut out before the data was transferred to the system so I could access. Every time the meter and pump were the cord's length away from the computer, no errors or alarms on the pump and the sensor was turned off! I find the carelink too unpredictable and time consuming....maybe I am too picky! I find I only use it every once and awhile to see the graph of how many of my readings are within my target range :)

I am loving my minilink still! Days go by and I forget it is there.....what a CGMS dream! I am on day #25 with my current sensor, and all seems to be going well. It makes a world of difference to not have all that tape!! I have a little piece over the sensor/transmitter now....and that seems to cause no problems! Still accurate......still chugging away......every day longer the sensor goes is that much easier on my pocketbook!

5 comments:

Bernard said...

Drea

Where's the carelink site? I'm just trying to learn how different places represent BG data.

Thanks.

Val said...

You know, I wasn't crazy about the carelink software until I saw the utterly lame versino Dexcom has. I wonder if I can still get into the site for my old data... if so, I'll pass some samples on to Bernard...

Drea said...

Bernard - the info for carelink is at http://www.minimed.com/products/software/carelink/

You need to set up a user name/password to get into the site!

Bernard said...

Thanks for the pointer Drea.

Wingman said...

I'm not on a CGMS yet but I've found the best way to track all my blood sugars and boluses is by entering them into my palm pilot - this way I can just do what I need to with the data in excel rather than deal with a less than stellar data program.