What to know about CGMs and glucometers

[Text on screen: Ohio State Health & Discovery
What to know about CGMs and glucometers]

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[Text on screen: Camryn Moulton, MS, RD, CDCES
Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center]

Camryn Moulton, MS, RD, CDCES: So a continuous glucose monitor is a sensor that you wear on your arm or stomach, and it monitors your blood sugar for up to 15 days at a time, depending on which one you wear. 

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And it places just a small filament underneath your skin that tests your blood sugar and sends that number either to your phone or a receiver that you get with the sensor. You take off your sensor after you're done wearing it, after those 10 to 15 days that you're wearing it, and you put a new one on.

A glucometer is a meter that you poke your finger with to get a little bit of blood and then you place that on a test strip and it gives you your blood glucose. A continuous glucose monitor is a sensor that you wear on your arm or your stomach, and it tests a little bit different of a fluid called your interstitial fluid or your interstitial glucose, which is a little different than your blood glucose, but they are influenced by each other. So when your blood glucose changes, your interstitial glucose changes.

So CGMs or continuous glucose monitors are not painful. You place it on your arm and it's a auto-injection. So you just press a button or push on the applicator and it places it for you. It's virtually painless, maybe a small little prick, but after you have it on, it doesn't hurt at all. And you can wear it to swim and shower and do anything you would normally do. A continuous glucose monitor can function without an insulin pump. Insulin pumps nowadays do use continuous glucose monitors in order to control the amount of insulin you're getting, but to wear a continuous glucose monitor, you do not have to wear an insulin pump.

The pros of wearing a continuous glucose monitor, or CGM, would be that you don't have to poke your finger to find out what your blood sugar is.

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It is sent to your receiver or to your phone, which is even more convenient. A glucometer requires you to poke your finger, test your blood, take your glucometer with you everywhere, and you don't get as many readings. Continuous glucose monitors do check your blood sugar every one to five minutes, whereas glucometers, most people are checking maybe four to five times a day at max, because it's painful.

[Text on screen: Ohio State Health & Discovery
For more information, visit: go.osu.edu/diabetes-education]

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