Is a CGM Worth It for You?
Reviewed by CDE Mehandi Sharma · Updated
A continuous glucose monitor, or CGM, is a small sensor worn on the skin that reads your glucose continuously and sends it to a phone or reader. Instead of a handful of dots each day, you get a line.
That line shows things a fingerstick cannot. You can see how a specific meal behaves hour by hour, whether your sugar is drifting low overnight while you sleep, and whether a reading is rising or falling at the moment you look at it. Most devices can also alarm when levels head somewhere dangerous.
Who benefits most? People taking insulin, where the risk of going low is real and knowing the direction of travel changes what you do. It also helps a great deal for a limited period when you are trying to work something out — a new medicine, an unexplained morning pattern, or which of your usual meals is the problem.
Who does not need one? Plenty of people managing Type 2 diabetes with diet, activity and tablets that do not cause lows. Sensors cost money, and in India that cost is usually yours.
A fair approach is to treat it as a diagnostic tool you rent for a few weeks, not a permanent expense.