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Triangle of Diabetes Care

A Tiny Revolution

Trend Arrows

Trend arrows allow you to see the direction your glucose is heading so you can take action in plenty of time

When you use one of FreeStyle Libre systems* for monitoring your glucose levels, you will be able to see your current glucose reading, a graph of your recent glucose readings, your target glucose range and a glucose trend arrow. The arrow points in the direction your glucose is heading.


  • Trend Glucose Arrow


  • Current Glucose Reading


  • Target Glucose Range

How to use trend arrows

Together with your current glucose reading, Trend Arrows can help you decide whether or not you need to take action. This may be taking a corrective dose of insulin, if that’s what your Healthcare Team has advised.

The five different trend arrows

How to calculate expected glucose levels

To work out your estimated glucose levels, you need two calculations:
  • Rate of change x Number of minutes = Rise in glucose level

  • Current glucose reading (+ or -) change in glucose level = Estimated glucose level

The rate of change for an upward or downward trend arrow is between 0.1mmol 0.06mmol/L per minute.

Let's work through an example:

You have a glucose reading of 6.5mmol/L and an upward trend arrow and you want to know where your glucose level will be in 15 minutes. 

First, you need to use the rate of change to find out how much your glucose level will change in 15 minutes. You’ll do two calculations here — one for the upper rate of change and one for the lower rate of change.

Next, we’ll use these numbers to calculate your estimated glucose level in 15 minutes’ time. Because your trend arrow is trending upwards, you add together the current glucose reading and change in glucose level. If your trend arrow is trending downwards, you subtract the change in glucose level from the current glucose level.

Again, we’ll do the same calculation for both the upper and lower rate of change.

Now you know that in 15 minutes’ time, your glucose level will be somewhere between 7.4mmol/L and 8.0mmol/L.

Use this calculation table to help:

To find out more about how trend arrows work and how to use them to improve your glycaemic control, complete our Trend Arrows educational module

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Triangle of Diabetes Care

A Tiny Revolution

References & Disclaimers

Images are for illustrative purposes only. Not real patient or data. 

* FreeStyle Libre systems refers to the FreeStyle Libre 2 and FreeStyle Libre 3 systems

† Finger pricks are required if glucose readings, and alarms do not match symptoms or expectations.

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