hi
@Ben&Squirrel ! I am pretty new myself I just wanted to speak to my experience with the Libre in case it is helpful to you. Nellie got hers put on as soon as she was diagnosed mid March. It was put in place at the vet and they used vet glue. It stayed in place the entire two weeks, but that is because she is essentially a potato with ears - she doesn't move much! I used the app on my phone to scan it, not the reader.
The app is super handy but just know if you're getting the Libre 2 it comes with built-in alarms. Some you can switch off, like the high glucose or low glucose (70 or below but you can edit to any number so that it alerts you when it's dropping) but you can't switch off the alarm that goes off when glucose drops under 55. Definitely in the beginning this alarm was a peace of mind for me, knowing that it would go off while I was sleeping. However, it became really annoying when she started responding better to insulin - it would be like 2 or 3 am and the alarm would go off. I'd get up and check and if she was having a particularly active cycle it'd go off 4-5 times throughout the night. Through the advice of members here, I would always cross check the low numbers with another meter - they let me know that the Libre tended to read lower than other meters which was very helpful and they helped guide me through the entire ordeal!
At the end of the two weeks when it ran out (it'll display in the app how long before it runs out) through the advice of my vet I pulled it off using soap and warm water. I then installed the new one at home (again, after getting the ok from my vet) with the help of my partner - it's definitely a two person job. She is a nightmare at the vet and it was just easier to do it at home and much less stressful for everyone involved. I got vet glue and watched videos and joined the group Larry just posted. It ended up being easier than I thought it would be. Unfortunately, the new sensor stopped working a couple of days early, sometimes you get a dud. I used a tiny bit of Uni-Solve Adhesive Remover on a q-tip to remove it and it came off super easily, SO much easier than using soap and water and didn't cause any injuries to her skin. I just made sure to wipe the area really well afterwards.
Some things to know -
- I don't have pet insurance, but I used a GoodRX coupon and the sensor came out to be around $40 at Safeway. The reader I think would have been around $100 but I never purchased the reader.
- Make sure to scan it at least once every 8 hours to get the data since it'll reset after 8hrs and you lose that info
- the app will alert you when it gets disconnected from the sensor. In order to use the app, make sure your Bluetooth is on at all times. I noticed issues starting with my second sensor when the app kept disconnecting from the sensor and kept sending me push notifications, which hadn't happened with my first sensor. The disconnections happened more and more frequently until the sensor stopped working all together. I contacted their support and I got a new one sent for free in the mail that I'm keeping as a back up in case I ever head out of town and someone else is looking after her.
- during periods of rapid BG changes, the sensor will display a message along the lines of "could not scan, try again in 10 min". It doesn't mean it's not working, it's just that the BG is changing faster than the sensor can read it. Sometimes this would last 30 min or longer for Nellie, and I'd just do a manual BG reading keeping in mind that the sensor reads about 10-15 min behind the blood glucose monitor.
All in all, it was great to see how she was responding overall to the insulin in the beginning and it was definitely an anxiety reducer as I got the hang of testing. The graphs on the app in particular were helpful in showing when, on average, she tended to nadir. It just gets a little annoying the better they respond to insulin! Hope it is helpful to you and Benny
