Continous monitoring cleared up

Ok so what is available currently in South Africa for continuos monitoring – and what is that any way? Continuous monitoring is the single most effective tool in controlling sugar in my practice.

Instead of 4-6 finger pricks a day to see where you are at for a sugar level continuous monitoring is essentially a device that resides subcutaneously (under the skin) for a period of time and “reads” the sugar on a 5 min or 15 min interval and gives a reading on a graph format of the sugars.

It is a life changing and diabetes management miracle. I find that with just this one intervention we can stabilise the sugars.

So in SA we have from cost-effective to expensive : libre-pro, guardian-connect, dexcom G5 and soon to be G6 as well as medtronic’s continuous monitoring that accompanies their pump.

For those needing a cost effective yet accurate solution the libra-pro is the way to go. Please do be aware that the device in SA is DIFFERENT to the one overseas.

Guardian connect is about to launch, it is a great CGMS that is both accurate and affordable. This device has a “monitor” on which the graph of the glucose readings appears.

Dexcom is an expensive but amazing CGMS, the G5 now communicates primarily with an iPhone and soon to be android. This means carrying less devices around. It is supremely accurate and easy to use.

The CGMS that accompanies the medtronic pump is getting more accurate but only available with the pump.

Any queries will happily be answered : shoot your questions : drleethgp@gmail.com