THE FIRST RULE

The 'first rule' of diabetes technology states that our diabetes technology devices (pumps/sensors/meters) are no better or worse than their users.

Never forget the first rule! Case in point: look at the 'estimated' A1C based on this Dexcom Clarity Report. It's a 90 day data set displayed here.

However.. the actual A1C was 9.3%. It was immediately repeated and was 9.1% on the second run. What's up here (besides the A1C). Weird hemoglobin? Machine error? The answer: this tween admitted to consistently altering each calibration BG over a 3 month period to effectively lower (falsify) the sensor readings. Why you ask? Privately, she said it was her parents who constantly watched her sensor tracings using the Share, and were frequently hypercritical of her readings if they drifted higher than they thought they should be. In defense of her parents, they clearly cared. But the impression they gave to their d-child was interpreted as overbearing. The teen was quite bright in applying this solution, albeit misdirected. This is a cautionary tale for parents who closely watch their child's sensor and often weigh in. This girl stated she was not really being supported as much she felt constantly criticized or second guessed. As a sensor wearer myself I can attest to the need to be more forgiving of the day to day variance in sensor readings. Diabetes self care is overrun with human psychology. This story illustrates this truth. Take the judgment out of the numbers we gather each day. Hopefully this won't happen to you, but you may never know unless you see a wide discrepancy in your child or teen's BG readings and their A1C.