I know there are recent posts about Dexcom sensors not lasting as long. Was that in regards to the G5 or the G6? And if the G5, when was the cut-off between “good” sensors and “bad” sensors?
It seems to me that sometime in the middle of last year G5 sensor suddenly had a hard time going a week for us. They used to go about two. This has not changed.
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I think it’s in regards to both.
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The sensor I’m using is from 2018-12-04. I think this is the first “newer” sensor I’ve used. I’m on week two and it’s doing an awful lot of dropping out. Not as bad as what others are experiencing, but it definitely seems to be having more issues (usually weeks two and three are the best).
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For us on the G5, 2nd half of the year dates for 2018 were when it appears they made the change. For G6, we get the full 10-days but we don’t extend them.
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It definitely sounds like this sensor falls into that range, then.
I typically wear sensors for a month. This one that’s only a week and a half old is acting like it’s in week four.
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That was our experience as well. Additionally, we knew things weren’t going well, because in addition to more frequent dropouts we would see cloud behavior, i.e. the actual readings weren’t a line but a “cloud” where you could still see the direction, but it wasn’t as accurate. This generally preceded sensor death.
I think the days of 20+ days of the Dexcom are dead.
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I’m currently using G5 sensors expiring in 2019, and I’m finding somewhat more noise from the get-go with them, vs nice steady lines. It makes it so that the diagonal arrows are pretty useless. I used to have near perfect results for 2 weeks easily, usually 3 weeks. I can still get 3 weeks sometimes, but the overall quality has gone down throughout, and the noise becomes worse sooner in.
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This is one of the threads you may be remembering, and it was mostly about G4 Platinum/G5 Mobile.
Can’t say as I’ve noticed any change, personally. I’ve been getting the same averages: Last box, which expired 09/2019: 45, 39, 37 and 18 days. Box before that: 47, 40, 36 and 24 days. Currently on day 16 of the first sensor out of my latest box, expiring 01/2020. Was unusually noisy in the second week but has calmed down.
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Me too. The last sensor I put in (which I think is from last November order) took probably 3-4 days to get settled in. Usually for me day one has poor readings and then on day 2 everything is ok. I am just starting week 2 and it is finally looking better.
But, I am still getting 30 days out of my sensors. The last one was 5 weeks.
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I’m going to keep this sensor running as long as it’ll go. Today it’s been performing better, so maybe it was just a glitch for a few days? We’ll see!
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I’ve been using Dexcom sensors since they first came out in the UK, and in the last two batches of G5 sensors I’ve had my first ever multiple failures, more noise and I’m guessing only about half the life. I used to swap sensors at 15 days on my arms and 10 on my stomach (even though they would last longer), now my arm sites are suddenly failing at 8 days, which has never happened and my stomach is lucky to last 7 days. Something has definitely changed across all my sites…
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I’ve just renewed this sensor for the third time (so headed into week four, on day 21 so far) and it’s still functioning fairly well. Some intermittent jitteriness and dropouts, but not bad. I’m glad my experience hasn’t been as bad as many here who don’t get theirs to last past a week!
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I changed my G5 sensor last week, the previous one I ran for 6 consecutive weeks.
I do notice noisy cloud data occasionally but it always seems to correct itself within an hour. I suspect it’s got more to do with bio-chemistry of cellular fluids than the actual sensor (or transmitter).
The internal algorithm should and usually does sort out the displaying of raw data but for some reason seems to take time off every now and again.
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Well, it looks like I’m having no real issues with these sensors, at least not this first one. This is now at the beginning of week five and doing fine so far. I did have about a day where data was pretty much useless, but that just seemed to be the first 24 hours of week five…
The sensor even survived a transmitter change yesterday that took quite a bit of fiddling becuase the old transmitter was taped down with the month-old sensor.
Also, Cavilon spray has been a huge success. The sensor tape and other tape I’ve used (Opsite Flexifix) has not been itchy at all, and I think my lack of trying to scratch through the tape has probably helped its longevity. And the padded bandaid underneath the sensor has meant it hasn’t dug into my skin at all. Typically between the itching and pain I’d be ripping it off by now even if the numbers were still somewhat decent.
It would be really nice if this sensor made it a couple more weeks!
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Glad you finally found a solution @Jen!
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Wow, amazing some if you get such longevity out of your sensors! 
I’m like @SteA and am lucky to get them to last to even 7 days, when they start to have errors and data is all over the place. But this has been my experience all along so not new with the latest g5 sensors.
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