Living with Diabetes and Lapband

Got home from school and put on the watch.

Now, part of the problem is that I got eaten alive by mesquitos last night and everything itched already, BUT

I put the watch on my outer arm, and I swear it feels like I'm getting burned. I've been able to tolerate it, but it is very uncomfortable.

Got through the warmup phase and calibration and now am testing and so far the watch has skipped every reading -- the first two. If thing doesn't start giving readings soon, I'm taking it off. This is just too uncomfortable, to get no where.

Skin irritation isn't bad, but you can definately tell where the watch was at.

I still don't know about the readings, but I was more comfortable going to bed with the lower blood sugar with it on.

So I don't know. I am going to try it again either during the day on Friday, or Friday night.

I honestly don't know what to think.

I've stopped the test, because I want to go downstairs and work out.

I did get a low alarm, I was experiencing low symthoms so I took 20 grams of carbohydrate, since my blood sugar via the meter was 118 at 11:30. Not REAL low, but the lowest my blood sugar has every been at night since I started measuring things.

I woke up with a meter reading of 98, and several soft alarms. The watch showed several very low readings.

I'm going to try again several nights before I do anything to affect my treatment. And it's all very odd.

After a LONG wait. Okay the advertised 2 hours, I finger stuck and calibrated the watch. It was a successful calibration, so we'll see how the evening goes.

The biggest things to remember, is that the reading is 15 minutes off, because it's sucking up glucose, rather than getting it from blood. Trends are more important. I'll have my first reading in 10 minutes.

The tech support people are courteous. I was freaked out by the fact that when I put the glucowatch in the reader port, and then pulled it out, the battery flew out and the watch reset.

So I called, it was after business hours, so I left a message. Got a call fairly early today acknowledging that it was a known feature of the watch, and shouldn't be an issue. And that it would be easier to remove the watch for the port with the armband.

I called back, because I hadn't asked about the reset issue, but I did figure out what was going on with that. The watch was new out of the box, and the onboard lithium battery hadn't charged yet. When I left the watch alone for a couple of hours, I could get it out of the hardware port with no problem, even though the battery still flew out.

They confirmed during the call, that yes, the battery didn't come charged, and that it would store results for 2 days without an external AAA battery.

That was reassuring.

Tech support means a lot to me. I would grade them higher with they had 24 hour tech support -- Therasense seems to, and Animas does -- though the tech support person calls you back within a few moments of you calling them.

I've had the watch on for 15 minutes and it's already a tad itchy. I'm also afraid I don't have it glued down good, but we'll see.

One of the problems with the Glucowatch is price. Even at the new reduced price, the autosensors are $3.99 a piece. That's a lot out of pocket, but I'm going to see in the insurance will pay for them if I like the watch.

They arrived today -- though this time, didn't have an invoice, which I need to have them reimbursed by my Flexible Spending plan. So I called and asked for a duplicate.

I've got the watch on and calibrating. I'll let you know how things go.

I did fubar things, I had the straps and d-rings wrong, and my husband had to help me find a way to make it all work without disturbing the autosensor.

I'll do better next time.

I'm going to do a "basal" test. I ate around 4:30, exercised, took off my temporary basal and plan to calibrate and then not eat again until tomorrow morning and see how things are going.

One thing that was freaking me out, was that when I pulled the watch out of the hardware port, the battery flew out AND it lost all it's data.

I even left a message with tech support, about the battery flying out thing, which does bug me.

However, what is going on, is that the internal battery isn't charged so it was losing the data. It's charging now, and retaining data. I'll leave it in Power Save mode all night, and maybe it will get charged.

Warning -- you have to call a 1-800 number and answer a silly "test" to get a passcode to be able to use the Biographer.

It's goofy.

I did pass, and I did get a passcode.

I have seen some of the training video. It's well done.

I like the fact that they give you a card with an index, telling where each part begins.