FreeStyle Libre

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Revision as of 23:35, 10 January 2022 by Sprague (talk | contribs) (→‎USA: cgm information about price)
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Related topics Blood glucose tracking

Linked pages on this wiki
Projects (3),

People (1)


The FreeStyle Libre is a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) by Abbott, which is based on a wearable sensor that can be worn 24/7 for up to 14 days after installation. Unlike other CGMs it does not have to be (and can not be) calibrated with a fingerstick blood glucose test. During the 14-day period it records average blood glucose-readings every 15 minutes, additional spot-measurements can be taken as well.

Reading and exporting data from FreeStyle Libre

The internal memory of the FreeStyle Libre covers the most recent 8 hours of data, so it needs to be read out relatively frequently to collect complete time series. Data can be read from the sensor either through a dedicated hand-held sensor-reader (which needs to be acquired separately) or through the LibreLink smartphone app if the phone provides NFC reader capabilities. All data is stored in the cloud and can be exported as a CSV file from the LibreView website.

Access to FreeStyle Libre

Europe

In Europe, the FreeStyle Libre sensors are sold over the counter in pharmacies and can also be ordered online on the FreeStyle Libre website at a cost of ~60 € per sensor.

USA

In the USA, a prescription is required to access the FreeStyle Libre sensors. Cost is about $40 - $60 for each 14-day sensor.

Warning: geo-coding of sensors/apps

The sensors and mobile apps for the FreeStyle Libre system are geo-coded and geo-locked. This means that e.g. the US LibreLink app cannot read sensors bought in Europe, so buying sensors from Europe is not an easy solution for US users, unless you also have an Apple or GooglePlay account that is associated to an EU country!

Linked content on this wiki

(The content in the table below is automatically created. See Template:Tool Queries for details. If newly linked pages do not appear here, click on "More" and "Refresh".)

Projects that use this tool  
Four Weeks Of Blood Sugar Tracking, High-Frequency Blood Glucose Testing, Tracking Glucose As A Person Without Diabetes
Self researchers who used this tool  
Quantified Diabetes Eric Jain, Gary Wolf, Justin Lawler
We talked about this tool in the following meetings  
2021-09-16 Self-Research Chat, 2022-01-20 Self-Research Chat, 2022-04-21 Self-Research Chat, 2022-09-22 Self-Research Chat, 2022-11-10 Self-Research Chat