Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) with the Dexcom G4 Platinum

Diabetes can be a difficult condition to control, particularly for those on a flexible insulin regimen requiring multiple injections per day.

In addition to needing to accurately judge carbohydrate intake, many additional factors can affect blood sugar levels, from physical activity to illness and stress.

These factors can become even more difficult to balance when your routine needs to change from day to day.

Do you feel blood tests are not enough?

Even people that test their blood sugar several times a day can experience difficulty in adequately controlling blood glucose levels.

This is because blood glucose tests give a snapshot of the blood sugar level at the precise moment the test is done; it gives no indication if for example the individual is 6.5mmol/l and steady, or 6.5mmol/l and rising or 6.5mmol/l and dropping very rapidly.

This latter situation could have disastrous consequences for someone about to set off on a car journey or enter a business meeting for example.

Consecutive blood glucose tests are typically carried out a few hours apart, which offers plenty of time for too high or too low blood glucose levels to develop.

This means having to be consistently aware of the signs of high and low blood sugar levels, which is not always possible. Uncertainty over blood sugar levels can become tiring and poor control also can affect confidence and motivation.

Results every 5 minutes

CGM via the Dexcom G4® Platinum for example, provides a result every 5 minutes, and through these users can identify a trend reinforced by the trend arrows shown next to the current result.

Users become aware for the first time just how variable their glucose levels are over the day and can explain why, despite having a reasonably good blood glucose monitoring profile, their long term indicator of overall control, their HbA1c test is still poor.

Simple to use CGM

CGM (such as the Dexcom G4® Platinum) involves inserting a sensor probe under the skin using a simple ‘injection’ technique;

The Dexcom G4®  Platinum sensor is licensed for up to seven days use and can be used in children as young as two years old as well as adults (it is not yet licensed for use in pregnancy or in renal dialysis). 

A transmitter is then attached to the sensor pod which wirelessly transmits the result to a small hand held receiver.

State of the art monitoring

This receiver shows the current result as well as the trends over a 1, 3,6,12 or 24 hour period. 

Alarms can be set to warn the user if the glucose levels are falling or rising rapidly or if the glucose levels are higher or lower than the targets set. Additionally an alarm can be set to warn of impending hypoglycaemia. 

Calibration is required by entering the values from two finger-stick tests per day and this helps the system maintain accuracy. Please note the use of CGM does not replace standard blood glucose monitoring.

Control can be further enhanced by downloading the results from the receiver to the Dexcom Studio™ software on a PC for further analysis and for identifying where specific changes to therapy are required.