I don’t know if this helps at all but there’s some ways to get a GCM from the private industry without needing a prescription, such as Nutrisense. I paid about $150 a month for it though.
To me, that's a lot of money for a piece of plastic. I get that it's a medical device and needed lots of testing etc, but Nutrisense seems like too much "value add" to justify what they charge for it. Hopefully I can get a prescription and get this all covered by insurance.
> To me, that's a lot of money for a piece of plastic
It’s a medical device with wireless electronics, a mechanism to insert a sensor filament into your skin as painlessly as possible, and a lot of R&D went into making it. It’s not just a “piece of plastic”
The companies charge overhead to have a doctor write a prescription. You can try to find someone who will sell you one from India or another country, but by the time you pay international shipping you’re not saving much.
Regardless, don’t expect it to be all that informative for your condition. If you’re having episodes of hypoglycemia with symptoms, you don’t need a device to tell you that. CGMs are most useful for conditions without overt symptoms, where you need a device to expose the subtle changes. If you’re having episodes, just log that.
> Hopefully I can get a prescription and get this all covered by insurance.
There is a near zero chance that insurance will cover a CGM for curiosity or for diagnostic purposes. If it’s not indicated for a condition and there aren’t significantly powered studies readily available, it’s not something insurance would be interested in.
If you aren't diabetic you could pay for something like Nutrisense or Levels to get enough monitors to cover about 2-3 months of activity, learn what triggers spikes, and then cut it. What you see in those three months is pretty much what you are going to see going forward unless you were to make a significant lifestyle change and stick to it (going to/from carnivore/omnivore/vegetarian, cutting out alcohol, etc...)
I used Levels for about 3 months and I saw the same thing over and over again, it was obvious when I was being good about my eating, it was obvious when I went out for happy hour. I learned a couple things, mix a little fat or protein in if you are consuming carbs to blunt the spike, the alert to "take a walk to blunt the spike" is never long enough unless you go for an hour or more. Another year or two of wearing it wouldn't change any of that.
Unless your PC says for your condition of X we are going to try and get your glucose level to never go past Y and see if it fixes it, a CGM for non diabetic people is something you can timebox to 3-ish months, get the data, and get out for under a $1000 one time investment.
The "disposable" electronics in these are also extremely interesting. They're cost-reducing the hell out of these devices. Even in the last few months, one vendor replaced a cheap chip (TI RF430) with even cheaper custom silicon. They are not standing still!
According to Wikipedia, first CGM was approved in 1999. That may be recent for medical devices I guess, but it still seems like they're charging a lot for 20+ year old tech...
CGMs have improved a ton in the past 20 years, becoming less intrusive and easier to use.
We pay a lot more than $150 for all sorts of tech that is far more than 20 years old. But if you could make it for $20 or $30/month, that would be a serious innovation and perhaps you should try to start an advanced medical device company.