The truth about glucose monitors (CGMs) for non-diabetics

Last year, I started wearing one of these, a continuous glucose monitor. I'm not diabetic, and I knew that my cells were still insulin resistant, but I'd been keto for years, fasting weekly for years, and I thought my sugars were gonna be good. Well, I was wrong. The FDA only approves the use of these for diabetics who inject insulin. If you want to have one, you must get a prescription from your doctor. If you don't inject insulin, you can still get a prescription, but you'll be using this for self-study, and therefore, no insurance company will cover this device when you're studying yourself. You'll also find some doctors are willing to write the prescription, and others, not so much. Before you attempt to get that prescription, stop. Make sure you know what you're getting into. Number one, it's not cheap. You'll be looking at $200 a month. That does not count the test strips or the glucose meter to calibrate that you're measuring correctly. It also does not count the price to go get the prescription from your doctor. Number two, your blood sugar spikes more often than you think. For people like me, I was fascinated, and I spent way too much time looking at my blood sugars and wondering what they're doing now. The time suck and distraction was a real issue for me. I had times when my blood sugar spiked, and then it did not return to baseline as quickly as I thought it should, and when I did testing in the name of science by eating grapes or other fruit, I was shocked at how much the blood sugar went up. But that brings me into point number three, that not all blood sugar spikes are bad, and I learned which ones were the best for me. When I went into the sauna, my blood sugar would go up because I'm emptying some of that stored glucose in my muscles, and it was worth it for me. Way better emptying of that than I thought. I also learned that if I was going to go exercise and I did not break a sweat, it did not raise my blood sugar. It did not empty out as much of the stored blood sugar as I thought it would. So if I'm not gonna sweat, I should have just stayed home. Number four, your CGM will wake you up, metaphorically and at night. I learned how dangerous some of my lazy habits were and how I had let several things back into my diet that were not good. For example, alcohol affects me more than I was willing to admit. That glass of wine destroyed my numbers, and it would last for days. Never put this on right before you go to bed. Calibration is really important for the first 12 hours of wearing this. This device actually measures the sugar around the layer of fat under your skin, and you're gonna need to calibrate that with your meter of blood sugar in the first 12 hours for it to do an accurate job. If you don't, it will beep at you a lot. I also learned that after multiple times of being awakened by the critically low blood sugar alerts, I found every single little button that turns those off. I am not a type one diabetic, and I don't need to know when my blood sugar drops suddenly or gets close to the 50 mark. I'm gonna be fine. Now that you know all the things to look out for, it is a great tool. I love biohacking my health to a better me. If you want one of these prescriptions, we've partnered with Meaningful Medicine for their online process to get that prescription to a pharmacy near you. Click here to start that process. I'll see you there.