Diabetes Blog – Happy-Medium.net

My clinical trial ended last week, after four weeks of measuring blood glucose variability.

I spent four weeks doing BG checks on a meter different from what I use at home.

I wore the Dexcom G4 continuous glucose monitor for the length of the study. I’m still not a fan of wearing a CGM. It’s a personal decision… I just don’t like having two things attached to me at the same time. But if I wanted to wear a CGM right now, it would only be the Dexcom.

There were four days during the study that I ate the same things, at the same times, checked my BG at the same time. It was weird when those days were work days. Kind of strange going into a meeting and saying, “Hey, I’ve gotta duck out quickly in fifteen minutes. Don’t worry… I’ll be back right away”. I also got a couple of strange looks on those days when the alarm on my phone would go off in the elevator or a quiet moment at my desk (setting the alarm is the only way I’d remember everything on those days).

I made two trips from Baltimore to Charlottesville for this study (about 220 miles each way). I spent one night in the team’s research house, and one day in outpatient testing at University of Virginia’s medical center, in the Clinical Research Unit.

Oh, and I realized I hadn’t shared the study documentation. So in the interest of full disclosure, from ClinicalTrials.gov, here’s all of the information on my study.

Clinical trials are important. They help keep bad ideas from making their way to the marketplace (although, sometimes they still do); most importantly, they help good ideas get the testing they need to make them successful once they reach the general public. As always, I was very happy to participate. And I strongly encourage you to consider participating too.

Interested in participating in a clinical trial?

The USA’s National Institutes of Health has a complete list of clinical trials taking place all over the USA, and even some outside of my country. To find them, go to www.clinicaltrials.gov and enter “diabetes” into the search box. A recent search found 10,366 studies.

JDRF has a very helpful web page that lists multiple sources for registering and finding out about clinical trials. Just go to www.jdrf.org/research/clinical-trials/ to find out more.

To read more about the University of Virginia’s Center for Diabetes Technology, including staff bios and more on Artificial Pancreas technology, visit the center’s website at www.medicine.virginia.edu/research/institutes-and-programs/cdt/the-center-for-diabetes-technology-at-uva.html