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Comment by Trasmatta | Hacker News Reader

> Imagine a permanent CGM, powered simply by going outside in the sun for 15 minutes a day. What a life!

Type 1 diabetic here: one of the reasons for changing the insertion site is because of the risk of infection / rejection. It's not just about the power requirements.

As an alternative, Eversense is a long term CGM inserted by a healthcare provider that's supposed to last a year. I've heard mixed reviews.

Speaking of mixed reviews, I have mixed feelings about non diabetics using CGMs. But if it lowers the price for all of us, then I'm on board.

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Yeah, battery life was never a problem. The Dexcom G4 battery lasted like seven months. I've heard of some people claim they can keep a sensor going a few months, by restarting the transmitter, but they're definitely outliers. For most people biofilm builds up and the sensor data gets really noisy. Massaging the flesh around the sensor can help extend it. I typically go ~20 days per sensor.

No restarts required if you use the Anubis transmitter. The battery is replaceable too. I get 14 days out of most but by day 10 the readings are lower than actual, I have to finger stick test and calibrate.

> I have mixed feelings about non diabetics using CGMs

What downsides do you see?

There are no downsides, really. It's mostly an emotional thing that comes from dealing with an awful chronic disease. So I mostly keep it to myself.

e.g., I feel sad when a non diabetic uses a CGM and says something like "omg I had a milkshake and my blood sugar spiked all the way to 120!". There's nothing wrong with them saying that, of course. It's just challenging to hear when you have a body that can't produce insulin at all.

I understand your feelings. One upside that I see from more people using it for non-medical purposes, is more data. That could potentially lead to new research and insights about diabetes, nutrition, and health in general.

Yes definitely! Overall I see it as a win, which is why I don't say these things to non diabetics using CGMs that I meet IRL. I think it's a win for diabetics and non diabetics, and it's more about my internal grief of living with an incurable chronic illness (that I can take to my therapy session).

I used one recently on suspicion of a problem based on an odd but not typically related test result. Fasting glucose and a1c on bloodwork were fine. The CGM however showed blood sugar ping ponging from 120 to 200 all day, barely getting back to 120 by dinner after a lunch spike, and lows overnight, even worse < 70 when the dawn phenomena should be pumping it higher. The CGM has saved an unknown period of time by providing detailed metabolic data that traditional tests couldn’t

This sounds like a faulty CGM which is very common. With these values normal A1C, <5.7% doesn't sound plausible.

Periodic finger prick tests during peaks and valleys confirmed it. A1C is a long term average and will not pick up issues that have developed in the past 4-6 weeks.

I've seen stock-outs on free freestyles, following “influencer” videos on tiktok. That's a problem.

It's a problem that solves itself:

- If more people buy something, in the short term, you have shortages.

- In the long term, you have better economies of scale and prices go down.

These things should be available for maybe $15 at most, generically, off-brand.

Personally, I think this is the kind of exercise most people should go through perhaps annually.

The freestyle shortages were due to issues with production of the libre 3 and a transition from libre 3 to libre 3+. Abbott really kind of screwed things up with the transition (coupled with a recall on some of the sensors)

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