Special
Feature
The
GlucoWatch®
Biographer—A Personal Experience
Dave
Joffe, Editor in Chief
I have had the
opportunity to use the new GlucoWatch® on myself and on several
of my patients.
I
was instructed on proper use by Gina
Gilbert, RN, BSN, CDE, Sr. Manager, Training and Education,
Cygnus, Inc.
in Orlando and wore the GlucoWatch®
to the ADA SE regional in Boca. I found it easy to put the
GlucoWatch® on and
start it. During the 3 hour warm up period I felt an occasional
tingling as the GlucoWatch®
was self assessing my skin.
At
2 hours and 55 minutes the unit asked me to check my glucose with
a finger stick and “calibrate the GlucoWatch® ” with that
reading.
This
was no problem and then the unit started to work. I do not have
diabetes but as an educator I have always believed that I could
never ask my patients to do anything I wouldn’t do. With that in
mind, I set the low warning at 90 mg/dl and high at 145 mg/dl with
the idea that I would check my glucose anytime the alarm went off.
Read
the GlucoWatch® Biographer – professional report
By
Gina Gilbert, RN, BSN, CDE Sr. Manager, Training and Education,
Cygnus, Inc.
PDF
File
The first reading
was104 and when I checked my glucose it was actually only 5 mg/dl
lower. 2 hours later
when the GlucoWatch® registered
118 mg/dl my finger stick was 14 mg/dl lower I wore the GlucoWatch®
until 2 am with the final reading being 150 mg/dl, 17 mg/dl
higher than my finger stick reading.I was able to see my glucose
rise in accordance with my eating and the 3 times it registered
under 90 mg/dl the alarm sounded. In total I received 28 out of 36
possible readings.
The average
difference between the GlucoWatch®
and my finger sticks was 13 mg/dl
I next wore the
GlucoWatch® over night with activation starting at 9 pm and
received 28 of 32 possible readings by 6:15 am when I deactivated
the GlucoWatch® in
order to shower. I found that the GlucoWatch®
is affected by slight perspiration and all skipped readings
were due to perspiration.
My glucose via
finger stick was 19 mg/dl lower at 9:30 pm and when I received a
low alert at 94 mg/dl at 10:34 pm this was only 8mg/dl different
from my finger stick.
These readings
convinced me of the effectiveness of the unit and why a diabetes
patient could benefit from it.
I also tried a
GlucoWatch® on one
of my insulin dependent patients. I have been working with this
woman for the past 4 months and we are only now getting her
glucose to near satisfactory levels. I have had considerable
trouble adjusting her insulin due to her fear of hypoglycemia and
had not been able to document the suspected dawn phenomenon. We
applied the GlucoWatch® at
7 pm and she calabrated at about 10 pm and wore the GlucoWatch®
until 8 am the next day.
Her calibrated reading at 10 pm was 195 mg/dl and we were
able to get 22 readings over the next 10 hours. The results were
very valuable. We found her lowest glucose was 147 mg/dl at 3:30
am and at 6 am her glucose started to rise steadily up to 224 at
7:30 am when she got up. Based on this information we increased
her bedtime NPH dose and will reevaluate in 3 days.
The downside of
the GlucoWatch®
is the
perspiration factor. This precludes your patient from using this
during exercise or in extremely hot humid weather. In addition one
of my patients did get a red rash from the contact of the unit
with her skin, however we quickly cleared up the redness with a
little diphenhydramine gel, a common over the counter product.
I am convinced
that the GlucoWatch®
is a valuable
tool to add to your patients arsenal.
TO
Learn more about the GlucoWatch®
Biographer please
read the attached article by Gina
Gilbert, RN, BSN, CDE Sr. Manager, Training and Education, Cygnus,
Inc. PDF
File
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