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Comment by ng12 | Hacker News Reader

> The sensors worked as advertised

I mean... yes. They're a prescription medical device used by Type 1 diabetics to stay alive.

Unfortunately this means less than you'd think. See other comments on this thread on the subject of accuracy. Also, from my understanding, the current (still wanting) state of accuracy is the result of large improvements during just the past few years. Prior to that, CGMs were still prescription medical devices used by Type 1 diabetics to say alive.

And more unfortunately, it has been my experience that information about managing blood sugar given to diabetics by doctors is almost uniformly quite bad (I've received the same sort of overly simplistic, misguided instructions from 4 or 5 different doctors myself; now I just nod and let them finish speaking). As a result, nearly every other (non-engineer/scientist) diabetic I've been met has very bad numbers (A1C: three month average blood glucose)—as I would have too were I to follow my doctors' advice. Instead I have very good numbers which are a result of research and reasoning I had to do myself.

That's troubling. Which doctors have you been speaking to? I've always gone to see endocrinologists specializing in diabetes and have never had a doctor give me overtly bad advice.

Always general practitioners. I tend to just visit them when I need a prescription now. I haven’t visited an endo since I never understood the purpose: I suppose they are more expensive and I can just use the internet. My A1c is generally high threes, so I’m not sure what else they could offer. I’ve asked general practitioners and they have never been more concrete than: endocrinologists can help you figure out which pump is right for you. But, internet.

Edit! High fives, not threes. See my comment below.

Wow - if you're Type 1 and have an A1C in the "high threes"...you're definitely one of those exceptional patients. Your A1C is probably better than some non-diabetics!

I could see why you have a pretty high threshold for the quality of advice you want. Not sure it's a typical experience, though.

It seems dangerous to me. One unit of insulin too much and you're in diabetic coma territory.

> My A1c is generally high threes

Wait, really? Your average bg is in the low 60s? I've never heard of that before.

My bad, I actually haven’t checked it in a couple years because every time I went in my doctors assured me I had very good scores - one said better than they’d ever seen. So I haven’t changed my patterns and visit doctors as infrequently as possible.

I just checked my last score which was 5.8. IIRC I’ve always been between 5 and 6 since I started directing my own treatment.

I had the same issues until I found a doctor who also has a type 1 diabetes. After I started going to her practice, my A1c dropped from 7.5 to 5.5-6.1 and I learned so much about keeping a good control.

The one I was seeing before her once started yelling at me for having such a bad control, so I seriously started looking for a better practice.

This is Hacker News. There are lots of people obsessing about things that aren't a problem.

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