If you are seeing a diabetes consultant this is the best place to start. Discuss your needs and explore with the consultant or the diabetes specialist nurse whether you are likely to benefit from using CGM. An increasing number of diabetes clinics have a CGM system that they can lend to a patient to trial for a few days, or if they are having difficulty with their control. This will give you an idea of what’s involved with CGM and whether it might be suitable for you. CGM is still quite a new technology so you may find consultants who do not know much about CGM or feel there is insufficient evidence to support its use. Even if your consultant is supportive of you having CGM, they may not be able to get you funding for it.
In its guideline CG15 Type 1 diabetes in children, young people and adults NICE has noted
Continuous glucose monitoring systems have a role in the assessment of glucose profiles in adults with consistent glucose control problems on insulin therapy, notably:
• repeated hyper- or hypoglycaemia at the same time of day
• hypoglycaemia unawareness, unresponsive to conventional insulin dose adjustment.
However, unlike insulin pumps, CGM has not been fully appraised and recommended by NICE. Consequently there is no requirement for the NHS to fund CGM. There are no official figures on the number of patients being funded by the NHS to use CGM, but INPUT believes the numbers are currently extremely low, probably less than 100. If you are making the case for funding you.
If you cannot get NHS funding, you may want to consider self funding, but this is expensive. See how much does it cost for more information. You do not need a prescription to use CGM, you can buy a system direct from the company. However you are likely to get more benefit from the system if you get support in using it, so do ask what support they can give you.
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