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    • 10 hours, 56 minutes ago
      Brett Crystal likes your comment at
      Which of the following is most accurate for you regarding blood donation through the Red Cross or another organization? (Please share more in the comments!)
      I've donating double reds for over five years...they definitely take your blood.
    • 13 hours, 3 minutes ago
      John Barbuto likes your comment at
      Which of the following is most accurate for you regarding blood donation through the Red Cross or another organization? (Please share more in the comments!)
      None of the answers apply to me. I was a regular donor before being diagnosed. After I was diagnosed, I went to give blood and was told that I could not because it was too dangerous for me. I have been under the assumption that diabetics are not allowed to donate and have never tried since.
    • 16 hours, 44 minutes ago
      Gary R. likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      I'm AB+, and because I was so used to needles as someone with T1D, I became a regular blood and platelet donor. I have now donated 403 times, and hope to set a new world record for most donations someday. This is a reminder to any diabetics that as long as you are feeling healthy and well, you are likely eligible to donate blood!
    • 17 hours, 27 minutes ago
      Anita Stokar likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      Is there a prevalence of T1D within any particular blood type?
    • 17 hours, 27 minutes ago
      Anita Stokar likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      O- And I earned my 15 gallon donation pin at my October visit to the blood bank.
    • 17 hours, 27 minutes ago
      Anita Stokar likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      I'm AB+, and because I was so used to needles as someone with T1D, I became a regular blood and platelet donor. I have now donated 403 times, and hope to set a new world record for most donations someday. This is a reminder to any diabetics that as long as you are feeling healthy and well, you are likely eligible to donate blood!
    • 17 hours, 34 minutes ago
      TEH likes your comment at
      Which of the following is most accurate for you regarding blood donation through the Red Cross or another organization? (Please share more in the comments!)
      I donated before my diagnosis at 42 in 2000 but I was under the impression I couldn’t after T1D because when I tried to test to see whether I could match with a friend’s 4 year old grandchild who had leukemia, I was told they couldn’t accept my blood for testing. I maybe translated that to all blood donations.
    • 17 hours, 35 minutes ago
      TEH likes your comment at
      Which of the following is most accurate for you regarding blood donation through the Red Cross or another organization? (Please share more in the comments!)
      None of the answers apply to me. I was a regular donor before being diagnosed. After I was diagnosed, I went to give blood and was told that I could not because it was too dangerous for me. I have been under the assumption that diabetics are not allowed to donate and have never tried since.
    • 18 hours, 33 minutes ago
      Lawrence S. likes your comment at
      Which of the following is most accurate for you regarding blood donation through the Red Cross or another organization? (Please share more in the comments!)
      None of the answers apply to me. I was a regular donor before being diagnosed. After I was diagnosed, I went to give blood and was told that I could not because it was too dangerous for me. I have been under the assumption that diabetics are not allowed to donate and have never tried since.
    • 19 hours, 5 minutes ago
      Danielle Eastman likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      I'm AB+, and because I was so used to needles as someone with T1D, I became a regular blood and platelet donor. I have now donated 403 times, and hope to set a new world record for most donations someday. This is a reminder to any diabetics that as long as you are feeling healthy and well, you are likely eligible to donate blood!
    • 1 day, 8 hours ago
      Dennis Dacey likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      O- And I earned my 15 gallon donation pin at my October visit to the blood bank.
    • 1 day, 8 hours ago
      Dennis Dacey likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      I'm AB+, and because I was so used to needles as someone with T1D, I became a regular blood and platelet donor. I have now donated 403 times, and hope to set a new world record for most donations someday. This is a reminder to any diabetics that as long as you are feeling healthy and well, you are likely eligible to donate blood!
    • 1 day, 8 hours ago
      BustedPancreas likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      O- And I earned my 15 gallon donation pin at my October visit to the blood bank.
    • 1 day, 8 hours ago
      BustedPancreas likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      I'm AB+, and because I was so used to needles as someone with T1D, I became a regular blood and platelet donor. I have now donated 403 times, and hope to set a new world record for most donations someday. This is a reminder to any diabetics that as long as you are feeling healthy and well, you are likely eligible to donate blood!
    • 1 day, 9 hours ago
      AmyM likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      I'm AB+, and because I was so used to needles as someone with T1D, I became a regular blood and platelet donor. I have now donated 403 times, and hope to set a new world record for most donations someday. This is a reminder to any diabetics that as long as you are feeling healthy and well, you are likely eligible to donate blood!
    • 1 day, 10 hours ago
      Louise Robinson likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      I'm AB+, and because I was so used to needles as someone with T1D, I became a regular blood and platelet donor. I have now donated 403 times, and hope to set a new world record for most donations someday. This is a reminder to any diabetics that as long as you are feeling healthy and well, you are likely eligible to donate blood!
    • 1 day, 16 hours ago
      Bruce Schnitzler likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      I'm AB+, and because I was so used to needles as someone with T1D, I became a regular blood and platelet donor. I have now donated 403 times, and hope to set a new world record for most donations someday. This is a reminder to any diabetics that as long as you are feeling healthy and well, you are likely eligible to donate blood!
    • 1 day, 16 hours ago
      Lawrence S. likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      I'm AB+, and because I was so used to needles as someone with T1D, I became a regular blood and platelet donor. I have now donated 403 times, and hope to set a new world record for most donations someday. This is a reminder to any diabetics that as long as you are feeling healthy and well, you are likely eligible to donate blood!
    • 1 day, 18 hours ago
      Beckett Nelson likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      I'm AB+, and because I was so used to needles as someone with T1D, I became a regular blood and platelet donor. I have now donated 403 times, and hope to set a new world record for most donations someday. This is a reminder to any diabetics that as long as you are feeling healthy and well, you are likely eligible to donate blood!
    • 1 day, 18 hours ago
      Gerald Oefelein likes your comment at
      Do you know your blood type (e.g., A, AB, B, O)?
      I'm AB+, and because I was so used to needles as someone with T1D, I became a regular blood and platelet donor. I have now donated 403 times, and hope to set a new world record for most donations someday. This is a reminder to any diabetics that as long as you are feeling healthy and well, you are likely eligible to donate blood!
    • 2 days, 7 hours ago
      NANCY NECIA likes your comment at
      Insulin pump users: Do you have unexpired, long-acting insulin in case of pump failure?
      I always keep it, and hope to never use it.
    • 2 days, 13 hours ago
      Dennis Dacey likes your comment at
      Insulin pump users: Do you have unexpired, long-acting insulin in case of pump failure?
      I have not had a vial of long acting Insulin since switching to a pump from regular and NPH shots. I have had two pump failures, but got by with fast acting insulin.
    • 2 days, 13 hours ago
      Dennis Dacey likes your comment at
      Insulin pump users: Do you have unexpired, long-acting insulin in case of pump failure?
      If you pick a large chain pharmacy, you can pretty easily transfer the prescription to another location (and then back, if needed). The pharmacist can do it. 😊
    • 2 days, 15 hours ago
      Anita Stokar likes your comment at
      Insulin pump users: Do you have unexpired, long-acting insulin in case of pump failure?
      If you pick a large chain pharmacy, you can pretty easily transfer the prescription to another location (and then back, if needed). The pharmacist can do it. 😊
    • 2 days, 17 hours ago
      Lawrence S. likes your comment at
      Insulin pump users: Do you have unexpired, long-acting insulin in case of pump failure?
      I do for now due to a travel incident I lived through back in 2024. What happened was I thought I had packed over a month’s worth all of my pump essentials everything but the cartridges for my Tandem pump. So arriving on the beautiful Pico Island I came to the realization that I had forgot these super important item and trying to get these was impossible. So I had no choice but to buy Lantus pen as well Humalog pen as well when my pump ran out. Fortunately after doing lots of research I can across and individual in our cycling adventure group in Cambrils Spain who worked in the pharmaceutical industry and she was able to get what I needed. It took almost a week of living the MDI thing and it was a real nightmare before being my hands on these cartridges. Hopefully I’ll never have to go through that scenario ever again and the only way is by making a list with cartridge and infusion kit being listed separately.
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    How soon after you were diagnosed with T1D did you start a CGM?

    Home > LC Polls > How soon after you were diagnosed with T1D did you start a CGM?
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    Samantha Walsh

    Samantha Walsh has lived with type 1 diabetes for over five years since 2017. After her T1D diagnosis, she was eager to give back to the diabetes community. She is the Community and Partner Manager for T1D Exchange and helps to manage the Online Community and recruit for the T1D Exchange Registry. Prior to T1D Exchange, Samantha fundraised at Joslin Diabetes Center. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a Bachelors degree in sociology and early childhood education.

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    41 Comments

    1. kristina blake

      Many years. When I was Dx (1982) home monitors weren’t available yet. I’d have to look at a Dexcom timeline to see when I started with CGM – I started with the old Dexcom Seven.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    2. Jian

      No CGM when I was diagnosed. And no glucose monitir

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    3. Jian

      About 28 yrs

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    4. Gary Taylor

      Diagnosed in 1976. Started the CGM in 2008. 32 years between them.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    5. Jeff Balbirnie

      55 YEARS LATER!!! (The “monitoring” part immediately, the tech did not exist until 5 decades later).

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    6. mlettinga

      I come from the dark ages where you peed in a cup and put in a beaker and dropped pill in to see what color it turned. I prayed for blue not brown.

      3
      2 years ago Log in to Reply
      1. cynthia jaworski

        Yes. The first big advance was moving from the test tube to a test strip. That took several years to happen. (More like a decade.)

        1
        2 years ago Log in to Reply
      2. Bill Williams

        Bright orange is the color I remember.

        2 years ago Log in to Reply
    7. Dennis Dacey

      Kind of a loaded question, this condition that we have in common, Autoimmune Diabetes, I endured for a half century before the name T1D or TypeOne was invented, I did try one of the first continuous monitors at that time and gave up on it after a few months – it didn’t provide any worthwhile information and was probably “dangerous” to rely on the values presented.
      I did begin using a valuable CGM 63 years after my arrival into the diabetes world and I’ve continued to thrive with it’s very reliable performance.

      1
      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    8. William Bennett

      Dude, the first portable, finger-stick glucose METERS weren’t even a thing. Latest and greatest were those Chemstrips you’d drip your blood sample on to, wait for the color to change, then match it to color swatches on the tube they came in to get your BG range. The big trick we all learned was you could split the strips in half the long way and double your prescription. Anyway, doing the math, dx’d in 1983, got my first CGM, a Dexcom Share G4 in 2015. So 32 years.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
      1. dgmarrero

        we share this experience!

        2 years ago Log in to Reply
      2. Sue Martin

        Diagnosed in 1985. Started DexCom G3 around 2013. About 28 years

        2 years ago Log in to Reply
    9. Conniekaycox

      As a recently diagnosed person I was blessed to leave the hospital with a cgm that was 4 years ago feels much longer!!

      1
      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    10. Nevin Bowman

      Probably 25 years after diagnosis. Finger pricks didn’t even exist when I was diagnosed.

      1
      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    11. Jim Andrews

      Diagnosed in 1967. Got my first cgm 52 years later.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    12. Ahh Life

      2006 minus 1951 equals 55 years. 55 years? Yikes, how did I ever do it? Now my instant gratification infirmities cause me to go berserk if I don’t know BG within 55 seconds. 😑

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    13. Anita Stokar

      Diagnosed in 1973 and started using a CGM in 2019= 46 years.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    14. Robert Kovalik

      They did not have them when I began, I have had diabetes for 50 years.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    15. Edward Geary

      Diagnosed in 1974

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    16. Donald Cragun

      I was diagnosed in 1966. I got a pump 33 years later (1999). I didn’t get a CGM that provided results in real time until 4 years after that (2003).

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    17. Abigail Elias

      I was diagnosed in 1968, many years before blood glucose meters became available, and many many years before CGMs became available. I got a CGM as soon as I could after they became available.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    18. Janice B

      There were no CGM’s when I was first diagnosed. So glad to have this great tool!!

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    19. Richard Vaughn

      I was diagnosed in 1945, and started a CGM in 2015.

      1
      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    20. Anneyun

      I was diagnosed in 1978. Back then we had to test our urine in a testube and there were only I think 4 gradations; none, trace, low and high.
      I got my CGM in 2020.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    21. Andrew Carpenter

      39 years.
      1. Nov 1979, the Navy knew/discovered but didn’t tell me. (found out when I ordered my military records)
      2. Apr 1990, blood sugar tested at over 3000. Admitted to hospital. Released 42 days later. No one told me then either.
      3. Jun 1992, Home blood glucose says 652 (neighbors glucometer). Went to ER. Officially diagnosed as T1D. Next day saw an Endo. Given fast acting and slow acting insulin and syringes.
      4. Feb 2017, First insulin pump.
      5. May 2018, First Sensor & transmitter. Thus beginning CGM…

      As I can best recall.
      #2 numbers happened when my kidney’s, pancreas and lungs failed.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
      1. Jane Cerullo

        Oh my goodness what a journey. Hope you are doing well

        1
        2 years ago Log in to Reply
    22. Jane Cerullo

      I tried the Medtronic CGM years ago. It was awful. Big clam shell shape with the very thick needle. Didn’t use for very long. Been with Dexcom for years now. Started with G5. Had to use FSL for a year due to insurance. But went back to Dexcom. On the G7 and it’s all right but I do think the G6 was more accurate. Was just kind of arguing with tech support today regarding the over patch. They must have changed adhesives because mine stays on using SkinTac. Never had one fall off. She was saying I needed patch because that was what was approved. Good grief. Do not like that patch. Doesn’t help the accuracy.

      1
      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    23. ConnieT1D62

      Hah! CGMs didn’t exist for the first 40 years or so of my life with T1D. I was diagnosed in 1962 and I started using one in 2002.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    24. Sherrie Johnson

      Cgm didnt exist. I was diagnosed in 1961 didn’t start till 2021 so my answer 60 years since diagnosis

      1
      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    25. KarenM6

      Like others, I was diagnosed before even blood glucose meters… but, I don’t remember precisely when I finally got a CGM that “stuck”. (I had two “trying CGM” failures before I got to one I could handle.)
      But, to answer the question, it was _approximately_ 40 to 45 years from diagnosis to CGM.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    26. Bill Williams

      The better question for this crowd would be “How long after CGM became available did you start using one?”

      6
      2 years ago Log in to Reply
      1. Maureen Helinski

        yes to the question.

        2 years ago Log in to Reply
    27. Steven Gill

      All this experience and history…

      Diagnosed in ’98, a CGM ’17, although stopped using one for several years (an old dog’s meds were more important). The last 3 years.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    28. Bob Durstenfeld

      I was dx’d with T1D in 1956, CGM wasn’t even a dream. I was part of a sensor pilot study in 1975, but it took a decade to bring the technology to market. The electronics did not exist to make it work, the prototype I wore was in a backpack with a car battery and a paper graph it would record for four hours. The DEXCOM G7 has come a long way.

      1
      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    29. Louise Robinson

      I was dad Type 1 in 1976. I started using a CGM in 2019. Prior to that I was test via meter on average 8 x per day to maintain good control.

      2
      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    30. eherban1

      About 40 years here.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    31. Anthony Harder

      I answered other since more than 6 years doesn’t adequately describe my situation. I was diagnosed T1D in 1966. In my 30’s, in grad school, I wrote an interesting paper on how useful it would be to computer control blood glucose with insulin delivery for optimal control. The only problem I had was the technology didn’t exist (yet).

      3
      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    32. jamesmpii

      I was prescribed a Libre 2 at the same time I was prescribed long and short acting insulin. I had the device in my arm the first time I injected insulin. I’ve never known T1D life without a CGM.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    33. John Williamson

      38 years!

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    34. Sarah Berry

      I was diagnosed in 1972. No cgm no finger sticks

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    35. PamK

      How about more than 40 years?

      2 years ago Log in to Reply

    How soon after you were diagnosed with T1D did you start a CGM? Cancel reply

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