FGMs or CGMs?

After having read my previous article, you could be now asking yourself wheter it would be better for you to use a FGM or a CGM system. If so, you are in the right place! Throughout this article, I will provide a general overview on the pros and cons of these two alternative ways to monitor your blood glucose.

Starting with FGMs, on which I can provide a more detailed review, since I have sticked with them for several years, I firstly want to stress out a precise point: they are the best option if you don't want to be stressed too much by your diabetes, because since they provide you a BG value only once you physically scan your sensor, you will feel way less "overwhelmed". However, with the exception of some few versions which introduced this function, the absence of alarms is a major drawback of FGMs, and I feel like not having the ability to directly see the changes of my glycaemia autonomously and minute by minute is something which could have a negative impact on my diabetes management. Furthermore, these sensors cannot be calibrated if they are used in the "regular" way.

These very few things pushed me to finally upgrade my FGM to an empowered CGM (want to know how? click here.), allowing me to actually provide a personal review also on this type of systems. Contrarily to their "more discrete" fellows, CGMs could actually make you feel a bit uneasy in the early stages of their usage, especially if you are a very precise person like me: the continuous flow of information could at the end "pressurize" you a bit, misleading you in the way you see your BG values, since the fact that you could actually start to perceive them as a source of anxiety, and not as a therapy indication. However, once you will have overcome this obstacle, the road to an effective diabetes management will be extremely smoother for you, not to talk about the incredible utility of functions such as alarms or calibration: the latter could allow you to finally get rid of the annoying obstacle of inaccurate sensors.

For the above-mentioned reasons, it is totally up to you for what concerns this decision. If you are a relaxed person about your glycaemia and you don't want to feel any pressure, go for a FGM. If you are very precise and you want to achieve nearly perfect diabetes management skills, CGMs are the way to go.

As I said, I personally opted for a CGM. No matter if it is a proper one or a modified FGM/upgraded CGM like mine, but remember that, in order to effectively follow my method, CGMs are by far the most valid option out there.