[Notification] Personalized Spike/Target Ranges
C
Cosima Travis
Feedback:
- Add a way to adjust the ideal target blood glucose to above 110 mg/dL.
- Member would love to be able to shift the optimal range because she knows she won’t hit 110
- Member would love if spike notification threshold could be customized (pregnant and glucose is going up 30 points no matter what she eats)
Tonya Cockrell
I just had a conversation with my health coach about the maximum 110 number. She thinks it's too low for me. I'm not sure whether I agree or not, but I feel like I should at least give her suggestions a try and loosen up my carb restriction. I get very hung up on numbers and feedback from the app, so I would like to be able to set the max to 130 or 140 to avoid getting "scolded" for being out of range.
S
Sky Pate
I would add that the current optimal target range of 110 and what the app considers a spike in glucose will be impossible to attain for most diabetics. While I subscribed to the app to improve my health, I end up getting so discouraged that it feels impossible and I actually go the other way. I often feel like nothing I’m doing matters, including at least 4 hours of pretty vigorous exercise 5-6 days/week, keeping carbs low, and drastically improving my sleep. I have what the app considers spikes in the middle of the night after not eating after 8pm—which my doctor says are related to cortisol, and as such, are beyond my control, yet I wake up with a score in the 70’s. I just feel like the app is very discouraging for those who are doing all the “right things” to improve our health and are still getting lower scores than necessary. At this point I don’t plan to renew my subscription. However, I will say that customer service is excellent and I do appreciate that!
C
Cosima Travis
Merged in a post:
Customize target ranges/zones, spikes, appearance
R
Rebecca Schulman
It would be nice to be able to personalize what is considered a spike and what generates an assessment as time out of range and just generally make the interface a little less critical/negative. Frankly, I'm getting to the point where I just ignore everything except the raw data, but it would be nice to not feel like I'm being criticized by the app all the time.
I have (remotely) had a gastric bypass and am absurdly carbohydrate sensitive on top of that. My response to basically any intake is going to be different from someone with normal anatomy simply by virtue of my post-surgical status.* (My questionable/lousy metabolism is a whole different issue.)
Similar issues may be present for individuals who are pregnant, have metabolic syndrome/insulin insensitivity, etc. and they will simply never have blood sugar responses that are "normal" and it is quite possible for the app to be useful without coming across as quite so hypercritical, which can be demoralizing and may ultimately drive people away from using the app.
I haven't tried using the food logging in the dexcom app directly or trying to see if I can import the dexcom data into another food logging app, which I suppose would be an alternative. I already paid for a long term subscription to levels health and figure I might as well make the most of it, so I'm going to stick with it for now.
I've gotten some interesting (and some very much expected) insights out of having the CGM so far (which is why I decided to go for it after considering it for quite some time). It would just be nice if I had the ability to tweak things to at least be a bit more neutral, if not positive. For some more concrete information/background: my A1c is consistently below 5.1 (In recent years I've seen numbers from 4.4 to 5.1, but according to the CGM I look like a freaking yoyo and ,while I definitely want to use the information to modify some of my food choices (that was kind of the whole point) it's just not terribly motivating to be confronted by an app that feels like it's criticizing me all the time instead of offering helpful insights. In that vein, some other ideas: maybe all the red isn't necessary, move the scores to a tab on the bottom instead of permanently on the top and just show the date there, that sort of thing.
*I'd honestly love to do a study specifically utilizing CGMs on individuals after different types of weight loss surgery compared to controls who have not had surgical intervention. I suspect the data would be fascinating.
S
Sky Pate
I feel the same. My blood sugar can be low all day and my score will suddenly be in the 70’s. It’s discouraging and there is no explanation as to why the score is low. I think it is completely impossible to get a score of 100 and even one in the 90’s will require fasting or starvation. I did this to be healthier but it’s very discouraging. I was consistently in the upper 80’s but after awhile, it gets so discouraging that you don’t even want to try because you know it’s hopeless to get your score up.
Jim White
I agree. Those of us who are very carb sensitive could use this feature.