This morning I got a little worried about my 9 day old Dexcom G7 sensor. So I inserted a new sensor but did not start it, intending to presoak for a half day or more. Eventually in the late afternoon the 9 1/2 day old sensor gave up…3+ hours of “ Brief Sensor Issue” no readings. So I went ahead and started the presoaking sensor and here is what Dexcom says: “Sensor start 8:19 AM” !!? The app says I started it when it was inserted, about 8 hours before I actually started the sensor.
It wasn’t my intention to shorten the new sensors life by 8 hours but apparently I did…has this been the usual thing when attempting to presoak G7 sensors?
That’s normal. The timer in the G7 sensor gives 10 days + 12 hours starting when the sensor leaves the inserter—that’s what turns it on. So this sensor will last you 10 days + 4 hours from the time you told the app to start it.
Well it was news to me! Not sure how I managed to avoid learning about that tricky habit of the G7 but oh well I guess I can live with it. Now I feel even less guilty about reporting a Day 9 sensor death and getting a replacement.
The G7 seems to be kind of a dud as far as quality and reliability and compared to G5 and G6, but Dexcom keeps selling millions of them. I’m not sure what to make of the situation. Makes me feel like a pawn to keep using it but on the other hand I have not found a better alternative. One of D-life’s little pleasures!
As @bkh observed the G7 starts when it pops out of the inserter. There is no need to start it and so far as I can tell it cannot be stopped.
I try to insert a new sensor at a convenient time after or about when the 10 days are up. If I have to do one at 9.5 days, or, for that matter, 5.6 days (Mr 2230), I run the replacement until it gets to a friendly time of day and then insert a new one.
I too got disgusted with several bad G7s in a row. My endo gave me a Freestyle Libre 2+ kit and I tried that, running it parallel to the G7. Found they were pretty much the same except the Libre was not calibrate-able, and unfortunately the one I got ran about 20 points low throughout the session. A sample of one is not very useful, but then I got several good G7s in a row and got complacent. My current G7 is a galloping jerk master, and I might try the second Libre in the kit. Wish Dexcom would do something about their quality control!
I am back to my old tricks – it didn’t work for a couple sensors, but it does again. Once the 10 days are up and the 12-hour “grace period” starts, I start a new sensor only on my insulin pump. I keep the old sensor going on my phone during the 12-hour window. That way I still have the old (more reliable for me) readings during the wonkiest 12 hours during startup of the new sensor! When I finally start the new sensor on my phone too, it no longer displays an overlay of both graphs, instead just picking up with the new readings where the old readings stopped.
That’s what I do! I don’t use a pump right now, so I have one sensor go to my phone and the other to the G7 receiver. I wait until the grace period starts to put in the new one, but it still takes about 24 hours for it to settle in.
You can use the pump in place of the receiver, that’s what @RachelMaraii does. Medicare allows this; we don’t have to have the receiver if we use a pump with CGM receive capability, I use Dash pods so I have to have a receiver.
This is why I originally got a receiver before I went on Medicare this April and had to have one! I wanted to check the new G7 was alive and kicking without swapping to it because I certainly see the 24 hour startup too.
Unfortunately there were bugs in xDrip+ which caused it to have major problems connecting after the receiver. I think these might be fixed now so maybe I’ll try again. I would much rather start on the receiver than risking inserting a new G7 and only finding it failed after 12 hours.
For people with AID pumps there should not be a problem either; just start the G7 on the SmartPhone and then swap to the pump afterward when the new G7 is working and more stable.
The issue with the O5 is that it seems to have the same problem as xDrip+ (I wonder if they copied the code!) In that case however it’s a valid thing to do if the Dexcom App is used on the ‘phone so it’s a customer service call and, if that doesn’t work, an FDA alert.
