Cursory review of SugarStats.com

As I mentioned earlier this month I have been using the SugarStats.com web site to track my blood glucose and insulin dosages. Along with the Calorie King Exercise and Nutrition Manager the web site has helped me in controlling my BG. It's the modern day equivalent of a log book. I can see how my BG changes over time and how insulin and diet affect my BG. It's like a feedback loop. I log my current BG, record my meal carbohydrates and decide on how much insulin to take. Later when I test my BG again I can look back to how the insulin and food affected BG. I eat the same breakfast each morning which gives me a baseline for comparison. My one big feature request is for the folks at SugarStats.com to work with the folks at CalorieKing.com so that I can enter my BG, insulin, and food intake all in one place.

Using SusgarStats.com is easy. After you sign up for a free account there is some initial setup to configure your account profile (insulin, measurement units, foods, etc).

SugarStats.com - Simple Online Blood Sugar and Diabetes Management

Navigation is quite easy with the menu bar always near the top of the site. SugarStats.com - Index - Simple Online Blood Sugar and Diabetes Management

The Messages area allow you to send a small note with your BG and insulin readings to your anyone. This would be great for sharing my progress with my endocrinologist; if only he had an email account. The Logs section is I put information about my last doctors visit such as HbA1C and any changes recommended by my doctor. The medication section is where I enter information about the type of insulin I take and the units.
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As you can see it's fairly straight forward.

One interesting feature of SugarStats.com is the TrustedVue Login.

TrustedVue is a SugarStats feature that lets you easily share your statistics with your friends, family or health care professional.

I put my wife on this list. At anytime she can login with a username/password and see how I am doing. Again, if only my endo would use this.....

Of course all this is nice but what about entering and viewing data. Across the right hand side of the SugarStats page is a set of links for Views and Graphs and Trends. There are views for Today, Yesterday, Last 7 days, Last 14 days, and Last 30 days. There is even a link to upload data from your glucometer. Although only one meter brand is supported at this time I expect that to change as more people use the site and demand support for other meters.

The view section is where the user enters information about insulin dosage and BG readings. Data entry is fairly simple. SugarStats.com - Day - Simple Online Blood Sugar and Diabetes Management
Enter your BG (or medication) value, pick a time and event and click "Save Entries". You can enter information throughout the day or all at once ("Add Another"). Your entries show up as a list below the input area. Once you have enough entries added SugarStats will start to compile your...welll...er...stats.
SugarStats.com - Day - Simple Online Blood Sugar and Diabetes Management
While knowing your average blood glucose, high and lows are interesting, for me the most exciting feature are the graphs. You can get to these by clicking on one of the "Graphs and Trends" links on the right side of the site. There are links for 7 day, 14 day and 30 day, one month, 3 months, etc. graphing.
SugarStats.com - Last 30 days - Simple Online Blood Sugar and Diabetes Management
The 30 day graph is my favourite. I love seeing how my BG trends over time and comparing that to my food log for the same period to see how different food affect my BG. One feature I would like to see added is the ability to click on any of the points on the graph and be taken directly to the entries for that day.

The other graph shows how your insulin dosage has trended over a similar time period to your BG.
SugarStats.com - Last 30 days - Simple Online Blood Sugar and Diabetes Management
I can see that over the last 30 days I have increased my Levemir dosage while my Novolog dosage has remained within a narrow range. Looking back at the BG graph I can see that during that same time period my daily BG average has decreased. It's a feedback loop. I know my dosing regimen is working because I can see the effect on my BG over time.

In summary, SugarStats.com is a welcome addition to my overall diabetes management strategy. I can only imagine the wonderfully useful things that Marston and his team are working on.

Author: Khürt Williams

A human who works in information security and enjoys photography, Formula 1 and craft ale.

3 thoughts on “Cursory review of SugarStats.com”

  1. Found this post while doing a Google search for some software. Recent-ish type 2 here. Was hoping for something that'd automatically upload BG #s, but sugarstats.com looks pretty slick. Going to try it out.

    Thanks for the tip!

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