My nine year old daughter has had type 1 diabetes for six years, and this week I saw that the FDA approved the Sleep Sentry to monitor symptoms of hypoglycemia. Do you have any information about the Sleep Sentry? Do you think this device would be good for children?

The Sleep Sentry is a device that senses nocturnal hypoglycemia on the basis of sweating and lowered skin temperature and does not measure blood glucose directly. The original version was discontinued a number of years ago because of skin sensitivity and the high incidence of false alarms. It has recently been reintroduced with FDA approval, but we have not had any experience with the new version in this center nor could I find any reports of experience in children with this new model.

You can learn more about it on the manufacturer’s website, but unless there is some special urgency about monitoring your daughter’s night time blood sugars, I would first of all talk to her diabetes doctor about starting her on an insulin regimen of Lantus for basal control and after meal Humalog or NovoLog. Such a change, if it has not already been made, could reduce nocturnal hypoglycemia to a minimum.

At a next level, I would occasionally test blood sugars at 1:00-3:00 am using Alternate Site Testing. Finally there is the expensive GlucoWatch II.

In the not too distant future there, will be even better devices for monitoring blood sugar such as the infra-red SugarTrac, the smaller Glucowatch III and indwelling sensors like the DexCom that creates a radio signal to an external monitor.

DOB