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Comment by emj | Hacker News Reader

> I measure blood sugar A LOT, though.

That is the most important part, you can really live a good life if you have that. I hope we get more powerfull and cheap way to do that continously. At the momemnt it's at least 300 USD a month for a CGM device that can measure every five minutes. It's abit like monitoring traffic load and adding more servers as you go, except too many servers kill you.

That with knowing how you react to changes in life works wonders, e.g. exercise, eating fat foods, sitting all day.

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Well, I have had the incredible luxury of being born in Finland, so state/municipality pays everything. Insulin, Glucose-test-supplies, Doctors. I truly fell sad when i hear what US based persons have to go through. Though, i suppose i pay it in taxes :)

About devices.. The first Glucose-test-device (what are they even called in english) took 5min to process the results. Current one is 5sec. A massive improvement in both speed and accuracy in these things.

I hope a good non-invasive device is developed, though i'm not sure it is essential, for me anyways.

I'm not diabetic, but I tried a FreeStyle Libre 2 continuous glucose monitor to measure my blood sugar, and I think it's basically what you are asking for. Tap your phone on a patch on your arm to get a instant view of your blood sugar, plus see the previous 8 hours. It is pricey though.

My understanding is that all current devices like this use a thin sensor "fiber" that is inserted under the skin, which is then connected to the coms-unit, which is in the sticker which remains on top of the skin. So they are still somewhat invasive.

And also annoying if your body really doesn't like them since they clog up after at most a day with me... (I've used them a few time since they were the size of bread boxes with long wires and the results after about a day always become erradic and unpredictable)

It is expensive, but testing with strips >5x a day can easily end up costing more. When I was on strips I usually needed at least that to have anywhere near decent control.

> It's abit like monitoring traffic load and adding more servers as you go, except too many servers kill you.

Not even just that, but with fairly primitive monitoring tools. The built-in stuff for Dexcom can only alert on highs or lows, not on things like the rate of change, which would be much more useful IMHO.

The Dexcom G6 is capable of alerts for rate of change, but it's about what the rate was, not what it will be. It still can be helpful.

(When looking at the app, there are "trend arrows," also, but they unfortunately are misleading in some situations. Often looking at the data points can give you a sense of your situation, though.)

TIL that this must be in the main app somewhere, but not Follow. (and yeah, the arrows are all over the place, sometimes different between Follow and the main app... the data points is the best, for sure.)

There are open source apps such as xdrip that can alert on a trend change, and androidaps that turns off insulin delivery way before you get to a hypo.

The official one from Dexcom is not very good.

Yeah, if you're technical, there's options. But if you're not, it can be harder.

300 USD? That is incredibly expensive! In Germany, the general public can order a Libre 2/3 from their website for 60 EUR. That's 150 USD per month (assuming 26 devices per year). Though that's a purely theoretical price: As with insulin, the mandatory health insurance seems to pay for it anyway.

Even with import taxes/tariffs applied, I could imagine a vacation to Europe being massively subsidized by just bringing back one or two years of GCM supplies (obviously Vimes theory of socioeconomic unfairness[1] applies).

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-r...

In Germany a Dexcom G6 sensor is 80€ per 10 days. A transmitter about 400€ per 90 days. TK pays for all of this if you can show nightly hypos and jumpy glucose values, which should be easy for any T1d...

Dexcom is the only one accurate enough to use with SMB looping. And the only one in germany that sends the glucose numbers to your phone with BLE. Libre 2 can be hacked to do the same though.

Hm, possibly? I mean, I luckily don't have diabetes and know the Libre 2 only second-hand (my Dad uses it to monitor his non-T1d). So I am not too familiar with the details, hence first of all thanks for the clarification of what that device can or much rather can not do.

However, I was under the impression that the GP [emj] was "only" considering good monitoring to improve their decision about insulin application. Not a closed loop system. But yeah, if they meant a closed loop and if the Dexcom is the cheapest option here, then the 300 US$/month is actually cheaper than the 380 US$/month you outlined.

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