Continuous Glucose Alert Fine-Tuning
Personalize your continuous glucose monitor alerts with data-driven guardrails. Enter your average fasting and post-meal glucose, then choose how much buffer you want before low and high alarms fire. The tool layers in overnight safety cushions, enforces ADA-aligned ceilings, and highlights when you need a wider gap to reduce nuisance alarms.
For educational planning only. Work with your healthcare provider or diabetes educator to finalize alert thresholds that reflect your therapy and medical history.
Examples
- 98 fasting, 156 post-meal, 18 mg/dL hypo buffer, 42 mg/dL hyper buffer, overnight cushion 5 ⇒ Set your low alert to 80 mg/dL and your high alert to 180 mg/dL, creating an 80–180 mg/dL window. The range spans 100 mg/dL, balancing responsiveness with fewer nuisance alarms. The low alert sits 18 mg/dL below your fasting average, trimming false alarms while preserving a safety margin. High alerts are capped at 180 mg/dL for ADA-aligned post-meal targets.
- 85 fasting, 140 post-meal, 25 mg/dL hypo buffer, 35 mg/dL hyper buffer, overnight cushion blank ⇒ Set your low alert to 75 mg/dL and your high alert to 175 mg/dL, creating a 75–175 mg/dL window. The range spans 100 mg/dL, balancing responsiveness with fewer nuisance alarms. The low alert sits 10 mg/dL below your fasting average, trimming false alarms while preserving a safety margin. High alerts float above your typical post-meal peaks to catch sustained excursions.
FAQ
Should I widen alert buffers on days with intense exercise?
Yes. Increase the hypo buffer or overnight cushion before endurance sessions to reduce lows from heightened insulin sensitivity, then tighten settings once recovery stabilizes.
How do pregnancy targets influence alerts?
Consult your care team, then lower the hyper buffer so high alerts trigger closer to 140 mg/dL while maintaining a conservative low alert above 80 mg/dL.
Can I use different buffers for daytime and overnight?
Yes. Run the calculator twice—once with your usual buffers and once with a larger overnight cushion—then apply the recommendations in your CGM app's schedule features.
How often should I revisit my alert targets?
Refresh the inputs whenever your endocrinologist adjusts basal rates, you change medications, or seasonal habits shift your typical fasting and post-meal averages.
Additional Information
- Low alerts floor at 75 mg/dL plus any overnight cushion to avoid overly aggressive alarms that disrupt sleep.
- High alerts cap at 180 mg/dL to mirror ADA and ISPAD post-prandial recommendations unless your buffer is smaller.
- Overnight cushion adds a safety margin to low alerts to account for delayed digestion, exercise, or basal insulin adjustments.
- If your high alert collides with the low alert, widen the hyper buffer or reduce the overnight cushion until a safe range reappears.