I’ve had a horrible time the past week dealing with Dexcom customer support. We call pretty often because it’s a rare occurrence for Samson’s sensors to last the full 10 days.
Anyways, last week we had a sensor fail prematurely, and then the next TWO failed in quick succession during warmup. I called technical support twice and could not get anybody on the line. I requested a call back. Dexcom called me back and somehow automatically put me BACK ON HOLD.
In frustration, I submitted my request via a technical support request box listed on the Dexcom homepage. I entered the lot number and the transmitter serial number, as I knew they would ask. Forty-eight hours later, I get an auto-generated email asking for those same details. As I had already submitted those things, I had discarded the boxes and did not have those pieces of information anymore (well, the transmitter number but not the lot numbers.)
Well, another sensor died prematurely today (just shy of 7 days). I’m on hold now for eons and no one is picking up. I’m really not sure what to do with this. These sensors are FDA-approved to last 10 days. They never do for us, but we tolerate that because they promptly replace any failed sensors. If this is the new normal I have no idea what we’ll do as we will quickly burn through all of our available sensors.
Has anyone else experienced this is in the last week? Does anyone know why this might be happening? Do you think their call system is messed up somehow?
It took them two and a half months to do a simple insurance verification this past January. They’ve done this verification numerous times over the years without incident. They never once, offered to send out emergency sensors so I didn’t run out. Every 90 day order now is completely screwed up. Spending hours on the phone with them is getting tiresome. They’ve completely gone backwards with their customer support.
Is going back to the G5s an option? We haven’t had to call support in over a year with the G5s. I don’t look forward to calling them if this is the new normal.
You done gone and jinxed it now! I’ve always had VERY good experiences when I’ve called also, but again, I haven’t called for a year or so and I know they are in flux right now.
When we start a G6 sensor, I staple the code from the bottom of the sensor onto the big peel off wrap from the sensor package and write the date/time of sensor start onto it. I keep this until the sensor is removed and tossed.
I find this an easy method to retain all the info Dex Tech support will need on a support call about sensor replacement. We usually get 8 or 9 days from a G6 sensor. I do not call every failure in but rather enough so we have no shortages.
It is starting to feel that the newest sensors we have are lasting longer and better so I am wondering if we are getting lucky or if Dexcom made a minor sensor improvement. Still too soon to know but I am optimistically hopeful.
Sometimes we call Tandem and sometimes we call Dexcom for technical support on the G6 sensor. But that is a thread for itself.
I take a picture of it with my phone. Means I have it forever (in my enormous collection of diabetes gadget pics), and I don’t have to add to my already sad paper pile.
@Nickyghaleb in the past this has been our experience as well, which I why I didn’t mind having to be on hold for all the changeouts. And last night, after a very long hold, someone did answer and they were super apologetic and helpful and got all the sensors fixed.
But it’s weird – last week’s experience was really terrible. I mean we spent a whole day without data and were calling in the few spare bits of time between doing another site change and another sensor change and they just never picked up.
@Thomas it’s possible the time of day is a factor. I almost always call during the late evening because that is typically when Samson’s sensors fail. Or if he’s at school and the sensor dies we often wait until he gets home to do the sensor change and then the kids are going wild so I don’t typically have time to call until after dinner. They may have pared down their evening call staff…
@ClaudnDaye I don’t think switching back to the G5 makes sense. The thing is, we used to change those out every 7 days and that’s about how long the G6 is lasting for us. So it’s not really worse except that Dexcom is promising something better than that. And the data is much more accurate, IMO.
When you aren’t getting errors still, correct? Last I heard you were having lots of problems with the G6. Have the issues gotten better? Yours and others experiences related to repeated errors are why we are still on the G5.
We had to switch to the belly and have had much better results there. Since switching about a year ago, we get many fewer errors and they usually start right around day 7 and the sensor fails within a day. We also had a rash of bad sensors last week where 2 failed in warmup but they were from the same lot so I suspect it just went bad somehow.
I still plan on holding out for a while. We’ve just decided to not begin the second sessions at all because, inevitibly, a few hours after we start up the new sessions, we get the missing data beginning. So we just stick with the 7 days and swap them out. It’s a shame the G5’s no longer work (for us) beyond 7 days, but that’s how it is. But at least we get zero errors, ever. We’ve had really good fortune so far. The errors we have had early on were probably attributed to user error (head space and timing issues). We have had occasional errors relating to occlusion, but those are far few and inbetween. We just don’t see fixing something that isn’t broken for us right now. But eventually we’ll probably swap.
I mean, don’t get me wrong; it’s annoying that we have to call about once every week and a half about a sensor when we should just be able to not call at all. If they just said the sensors lasted 7 days and sent that many, we’d basically never call because we wouldn’t ever feel scared of having a shortfall.
@TiaG
You need to get the transmitter replaced. Even if it is not due for replacement yet.
Sometimes the transmitters don’t last as long as they are supposed to. And it looks like failed sensors, but it is not the sensor. It is the transmitter.
I have experienced this. And I also had to go through the nonsense with Dexcom.
They wanted to keep swapping sensors, and I explained that if the new sensors keeps failing, and I keep replacing them but it does not fix the problem, let’s try something else! And then when I swapped the transmitter, suddenly those failed sensors started working.
Try it. I bet this is a transmitter problem you are seeing.
April 2020. That’s the earliest of the batch we have because basically all our sensors fail so frequently that we are often sent replacements. So we have long since burned through the original 9 sensors we got sent for this 3-month-period.
i have noticed some dropped signal issues when Samson is right next to his phone… But the transmitter is not even a month old and the 3rd sensor we inserted last week lasted the usual 7 days before the adhesive caused it to die (although the data was getting jittery too). I guess I’ll ask the next time something fails.
I know, but if you use that reasoning, some of those sensors are not even two hours old!
I don’t know why we accept that sensors may not last the full time, but transmitters would always last the 3 months.
I’ve gone through this. Replacing the transmitter fixed it immediately.
And one time as a proof-of-concept for Dexcom, I had a sensor that “failed” during the warm-up. But I did not replace the sensor, I pulled the transmitter off and put a new transmitter in and restarted it, and suddenly that “failed sensor” started working. And I asked Dexcom, “Now do you still think it is a sensor problem?”
I don’t know for sure if this is your issue, but at this point swapping the transmitter seems like a better thing to try than burning through all of your sensors.
I don’t know for sure if this is your issue, but at this point swapping the transmitter seems like a better thing to try than burning through all of your sensors.
True. Not so much because of the waste of sensors (we have enough since they replace them.) But it’s really hard on Samson and we don’t want to put him through extra junk when it’s not necessary.
I’ve always had VERY good experiences when I’ve called also, but again, I haven’t called for a year or so and I know they are in flux right now.
