What people built with CYGM: reader stories

01 Published

Before you read these

Every account below is one person's individual experience. They are not typical results and they are not what you should expect. They are also not evidence that the device performs as described: CYGM mirrors a reading your own CGM has already produced, and a story about it says nothing about whether that mirror holds up in your house. Nobody is paid, or given hardware, for writing one.

Sending one is for adults: you have to be eighteen or older. A parent is welcome to write about their own child, without naming the child and without details that would identify them. What is stored, and how to have a story taken down, is set out in the consumer health data notice, and the licence you give me by sending one is in the terms.

1 story

Thank you so much!

CYGM has been a fantastic addition to my diabetes management! Being able to see my blood glucose levels on a dedicated monitor without constantly checking my phone is incredibly convenient and allows me to react sooner when I see a rising or lowering trends. One of the most valuable features is the loud alert that will wake me if my blood sugar drops too low while I'm sleeping, giving me added peace of mind overnight.

My appreciation goes to the developer (Carl) who put in the time and effort to create CYGM and make it freely available to the diabetes community. Having access to this kind of technology without the high cost of commercial alternatives is a real benefit for people living with diabetes who are already struggling with costs to manage this disease. Managing diabetes is a 24/7 job, and making tools like this accessible to more people is a genuinely generous contribution. Thank you for sharing your work and helping make life with diabetes a little easier!

Brad Dexcom 2026-10-27

About these accounts

These are personal experiences readers sent me. They are not typical results. CYGM mirrors a reading your own CGM has already produced. It does not make that reading more accurate, and it does not make an alarm more reliable than the one your CGM app already gives you.

Nobody here was paid or given hardware for writing.

02 Add yours

Tell me what you built

A few hundred words is plenty: what you were trying to solve, what you made, and what caught you out. I know I am asking you to write about your family's health on a public page, so take only as much of it as you are comfortable with. Nothing goes up until I have read it, and you can have it taken down whenever you want.

Photos are welcome. I take the hidden location and time data out of every picture as it arrives, but have a look at what is in the frame before you send it.

Your name

You choose below how much of this is shown.

Email

Never published. Used only to reply to you, and so you can ask for your story to be removed later.

How should you be credited?

Anonymous is the default on purpose. Change it only if you actively want your name on a public page about health.

Where are you? Optional

A city or a country. Please do not give an address.

Which service do you use? Optional

A short title Optional

Your story

A few sentences at least, please. 120 characters is the minimum.

Please do not include specific glucose readings, dates of medical events, clinician or hospital names, or anything that identifies another person beyond the name you chose above.

A link, if you want one Optional

Somewhere people can find you: a social profile, a blog, a project page. It has to start with http:// or https://. One thing to be aware of, because it is easy to miss: a link is identifying whatever you chose above about your name, so if you asked to stay anonymous, leave this empty.

What to call the link

Photos Optional Choose pictures, or drop them here JPEG, PNG or WebP

No pictures chosen.

Up to 3 pictures, JPEG, PNG or WebP, 5 MB each. Please do not photograph anything that identifies you or anyone else: a house number, a street sign, a name badge, post with an address on it, or a screen showing somebody's real readings. I strip the hidden location and time data out of every file as it arrives, but I cannot strip what is in the picture.

03 What happens to what you send

How your submission is handled

Who holds it

Carl Brothers, who runs this project, at carl@cygm.me. There is no company behind this and no third party involved.

Why it is allowed to be published

Because you consented to it, and for the health information in it, because you gave explicit consent by ticking the first box. That is the only basis used. Nothing here is published on any other footing.

Where it appears

On this website only. A story may be quoted on another page of this site, and nowhere else. Using it anywhere beyond this site would need asking you again.

How long it is kept

Until you ask for it to be removed. Email the address above and it comes down, within seven days and usually the same day.

What is stored

Your story, any photos you attached, any link you gave and what you called it, the credit and location you chose, your email address, the date, and a record of the exact consent wording you were shown. Your email address is never published. A link, if you give one, is published beside your story. There is no analytics profiling of people who submit.

What happens to a photo

Your picture is never stored as you sent it. The moment it arrives it is decoded and written out again as a new file, which is what removes the location, the capture time and everything else your phone hides inside a camera file. Only the pixels survive that. Very large pictures are shrunk on the way through.

Where a pending photo sits

Nowhere anyone can reach. Until I have read your story and published it, both the words and the pictures live in a directory that is not served to the web at all. Approving a story is the act that puts a photo on a public address.

A second screen, not your source of truth

CYGM is an open-source, experimental secondary CGM display. It is not FDA-cleared or FDA-approved, and it has not been clinically validated. It shows readings that have already travelled through your own CGM's app and cloud service, so it can lag, gap or fail independently of them.

Never use it as the sole basis for a treatment decision, and never rely on it as your only alarm. Always confirm on your prescribed CGM receiver or app before dosing or treating.