A couple of days agone, I woke up to the wailing of my Dexcom consecutive glucose monitor on my nightstand. I keep it set to vibrate, but if that oscillation watchful is ignored for several minutes, audio alerts mechanically give to force me to pay attention.

In big, bold, red letters the iPod-rabbit-sized device told me I was LOW, less than 55 mg/dL.

Thanks to moderne technology and do-IT-yourself ingenuity, my Android phone sitting right next to my CGM Greco-Roman deity device was also working to restrain me safe.

As celebrated before, I've been hooked up to the Nightscout–xDrip do-it-yourself CGM in the Cloud setup for an entire class now. Think of, that Hypo That Varied My Mind ultimate year? I've been connected ever since, mostly when I am traveling, but often also in the sunrise hours when I'm home alone.

Thanks to that system, my period of time CGM information gets sent directly from my Dexcom receiver with shapely-in Bluetooth to an app on my Humanoid phone, and it's and then beamed to the Cloud. From at that place, information technology's sent to my wife's earpiece and her Pebble watch for easy viewing.

On this particular break of day, my LOW reading successful her smartwatch vibrate while she was on her way to work, which prompted her to call me right away.

Had she non done that, I may not consume in reality responded to that LOW reading, but Crataegus laevigata very well undergo departed back out to sleep instead… entering very dangerous territory.

At that <55 point, I was certainly feeling the hypodermic – blurry visual modality, bonce-the like legs, a wave of bone-penetrating shivers, and that ecumenical sense of… fear. A sense that I was alone, exceedingly low, and in danger of non being able to treat myself Beaver State losing knowingness completely.

As luck would have it, my wife called and her vocalism snapped me into treatment mode; a few Sunny Delights, a gem, and nonpareil banana tree later, I was moving quickly upwards toward the high end of my BG lay out.

Histrionic as it may follow, I credit my smartphone for saving my life that morning. Afterward all, the headphone is even as much part of my medical twist setup these days as the FDA-approved device itself!

This got me thinking about how powerful our modern-day D-engineering really is — which shouldn't come as a surprise when we're marking the 30th day of remembrance of "Back to the Future" this month, and it's 2015, the twelvemonth Marty McFly and Commerce Brown traveled to in this movie sequel (even if we don't yet have flying cars and hoverboards).

Only take e.g. the new Dexcom G5 system, which began shipping a few weeks past and is just today start to collect real-life feedback from people in the Diabetes Community of interests.

As a refresher course: the brand-new Dexcom G5 eliminates the pauperism for a come apart receiver, and instead allows the CGM transmitter to talk directly to your smartphone.

I had ordered my upgrade at the end of September and expected to ingest it by at present, simply a week ago Dexcom reported IT's inventory was depleted and orders were backlogged. So, straightaway the company says it could be December earlier my G5 arrives.

Given, it's lonesome available for iPhones right now thusly those of us exploitation Android are impossible of chance until sometime next year, but I am excited about this following step in mobile D-tech.

Years ago, I chatted with Dexcom's then-CEO Terry Gregg about how the ship's company was just vibrating into the mHealth orbit and getting ready for this direct-to-smartphone technology. At the clip, they were still in discussions with FDA, stressful to persuade the way that including a headphone in a medical checkup system like this was Hunky-dory. I vividly remember Terry saying past that phone companies like Apple and Humanoid did non neediness to move in the medical device business; they were cautious near afoot their phones into that family, putting them into the sights of Food and Drug Administration regulation.

Buckeye State, how far we've come through!

Yet there are hush concerns… aired eloquently by our tech-savvy friend and fellow polygenic disorder George C. Scott Hanselman, who a wrote an insightful review of the G5 a couple of days ago over on his blog. His summary: "So much wasted potential." Sidesplitter, that sure caught our care.

While he loves Dexcom and lauds this fashionable-generation device as having much to offer, Scott points out that this G5 is very reliant on the phone, which causes some downsides.

Videlicet, it doesn't occupy in gaps in data, and sometimes the Bluetooth just loses connection.

That really concerns me, because I feel like we are moving to a target where we're so reliant on our devices (including phones) that we're losing a sense of what diabetes management was before this technology. Yes, inexperienced tech bum embody lifesaving — just it can also be detrimental if we become so dependent that we don't know how to survive or beryllium calm without it.

My stop is that information technology's like precept kids to empathize math before they scram a calculator — otherwise, if no reckoner is some, they Crataegus laevigata stimulate trouble doing the simplest equations in their head (like many adults I know!). If your life depended on it math, you wouldn't want to be completely helpless without the tech device.

I feel like that's where we're bearing with diabetes. I'm a big proponent of new gadgets that help United States, but I'm equally an advocate for fashioning sure people have the basic knowledge to survive without the technical school. A big part of that goes back to advocating for major, more accessible diabetes instruction overall.

A former endo of mine once looked in me in the eyeball American Samoa I inclined her on prescribing me a new insulin heart, and flat out said: "It's not the gimmick, information technology's the person. If you aren't doing what you have to do, the gadget doesn't matter."

Touché to that quondam endo.

Bottom line: I love the applied science and very much appreciate that my phone can help keep me dependable, but I'm just as causative qualification sure I see wherefore those lows are happening and doing something about it, old-school style.