Calibration

As you may have read in some of my previous articles, one of the main functions which pushed me towards xDrip+ was the possibility of being finally able to calibrate my sensor. Even though this opportunity gives us the incredible advantage of finally avoiding many annoying inaccuracy issues, it has to be performed carefully, otherwise it could turn out to be even potentially dangerous.

The guidelines which I am going to provide come from my expereince with xDrip+, but they may be appropriate also for other glucose monitoring systems which allow calibration. I suggest you calibrate your sensor at least twice a day.

First and foremost, we always have to remember that our glycaemic sensor shows us our BG track with a delay of 5-10 minutes, and so the goal of a perfect calibration should not be the one of having the exact same values at the same time on our glucometer and on our sensor, but to make them match after almost the above-mentioned delay.

As you may have understood, the primary source for our calibrations is the more precise in terms of instant BG values: the good old fingerprick. The easiest way to achieve what I have mentioned in the last paraghraph is, of course, to calibrate your sensor when your BG is quite stable. However, it is not true that the process cannot be done whenever your BG is dropping or rising, especially if you have inserted the sensor in the last two days: in this case, you can proceed normally. If this isn't the case, and your glucose monitoring system is in its first two days of lifetime, just wait five minutes before inserting the fingerprick values into the software: this will compensate the glycaemic instability.

On the other side, it might happen that, due to some inaccurate calibrations or after the transition over the eight/tenth day of the sensor's lifetime, the BG values provided by the sensor start to become inaccurate and not easily corrigible with calibration. This happens because, calibration after calibration, the systems builds a slope which automatically directs the displayed glycaemic values following an algorithm. If you are working with xDrip+, there is a very simple way to tackle this and to win back the control: all you have to do is to open the menu, then click on "stop sensor" and, in the page which appears, go for "don't stop the sensor, just reset all the calibrations".

Thank you for your time! If you want to know more on the possibilities which technology provides us in terms of diabetes management, all you have to do is to keep reading my website!