I just downloaded data from my Dexcom and have been taking a look at it. There’s so much data and so many different ways of looking at it; it’s hard to tell what to make of it. There are a few items I like to focus on:
Modal Day screen
- average blood sugar for the month
- average blood sugar for the past 3 months
- standard deviation
Glucose Distribution screen
- % in range for the month
- % in range for the past 3 months
Success Report screen
- compare data montly
- compare data quarterly
The average will tell me about what my A1c will be. I use this chart and I have found
that comparing my Dexcom average to this chart is very close to my actual A1c.
The standard deviation will tell me if I am doing too much of a rollercoaster. Lower is better. I will confess, mine is not as low as I would like, so I know that I need to level it out.
% in range is very important to me. Knowing that I am in range 75% of the time is greatly empowering. Knowing that I am 95% in range upon waking is even more empowering. Of course, knowing I am only 50ish% in range after lunch tells me that I need to work on that area.
Comparing the data from month to month is great for trends. I can see that my average in October was less that what it was in September, which is great. I can also see that my average for the last quarter is lower than the previous quarter, so I imagine that my A1c will be lower as well.
Using the Dexcom software can be a little overwhelming (there’s so much more data available than I even mentioned), but if I focus on these few things, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on my diabetes control.
