Patient background
Claudia, a 72-year-old female who lives alone and loves to garden. She has a history of level 3 hypoglycemia that required assistance.
Current treatment: Glipizide and metformin
Current A1C: 7.4%
Scenario
Claudia was planting flowers in her yard when she felt shaky and decided to sit down. A neighbor saw her sitting and looking disoriented and went over to see if she was ok. Claudia said she needed juice or the sugar tablets, which her neighbor quickly retrieved from her kitchen. She drank 4 ounces of juice and ate 2 glucose tabs. Once she felt a bit better, she realized she took her sulfonylurea at lunchtime but got sidetracked planting before she ate. She knew she had experienced very low glucose and decided to call her doctor to discuss.
She went in for an appointment the next day and told her doctor she’s had similar episodes before, and thinks she might have also been low those other times. Her doctor documented in the office visit note that Claudia has had level 3 hypoglycemia that required assistance, then prescribed Dexcom G7. She started on Dexcom G7 as soon as her shipment arrived.
Why Dexcom G7 was prescribed
Expanded Medicare coverage criteria* includes level 3 hypoglycemic events that require assistance and are documented in the office note.
How Dexcom CGM helped
Claudia now uses Dexcom G7 consistently and gets alerts if her glucose drops quickly or will be urgently low soon, so she can take action to avoid hypoglycemia. She also gets a low alert that she set to go off when she drops to 85 mg/dL.
Another feature of Dexcom G7 that Claudia says eases her mind and gives her comfort is that the Dexcom G7 mobile app allows her to share her CGM data with up to 10 followers.|| At this time, her neighbor and daughter follow her and get alerted if she is low so they can check in on her.