I don’t think, until this one, we’ve ever had one last less than 13 days.
Just reset it yesterday (microwave trick worked), but today (day 8) we started getting lots of intermittent disconnects in data. After five disconnects for an hour each time, we just changed the sensor out.
Never had that before. Nothing different about his routine. Just strange. After checking his BG this last time and seeing a nearly 300, it was just time to change it.
It’s a funny matter of perspective. 8 days for me is an accomplishment.
We have had one sensor in the last year, crap out like this. I consider that pretty amazing considering how much abuse these things take.
WE routinely have sensors last 8, maybe 9 days. Not sure why but rarely do they last more than 10 days. We have had some that approached 28 days, but Samson doesn’t like when we put the extra patch on to keep them on that long…about 2 weeks is the practical limit. I guess each body is different.
Do you guys use an adhesive before applying the sensor? I sometimes use the glue to make it stick after 5 days or so, when it starts to peel off. But I can’t stand the feeling of that stuff, so I don’t want it on for 7 days.
I am surprised the younger ones don’t want it swapped out more frequently. For me it is barely noticeable for the first several days, but the longer it stays on, the more it itches.
No adhesive under. We stopped using skin-tac because it was unnecessary. We clean the surface, add sensor and transmitter then put Dextape on top.
Adhesion isn’t ever an issue right now for us.
Sounds like we are lucky to get 14 days most of the time though, so I’ll just retract my complaint. Lol
Do you use dextape right away? Or after a few days when it starts to loosen up?
In general I try to avoid any extra tape or anything until it becomes necessary. I just don’t like the feeling of that stuff.
Does it not become bothersome after a week for him?
I don’t see how I would be able to deal with the 14 day sensor thing they are talking about.
I’m with you; I think for our son the tape and itchiness is worse than the sensor insertion, so we haven’t been going much beyond the point where the edges of the main adhesive start wearing off.
I wouldn’t do the Senseonics implantable device for our son, but the advantage of not having tape does seem appealing…
What is the drawback of that device? Is it continuous, or do you need to read it like the Libre?
It’s continuous – but you’re literally implanting something into your body. WE have no idea how the scar tissue forms and how quickly /if it heals, it needs to be reinsterted every 3 months, and it’s not a small device that sits atop the skin either. Also it’s not quite as accurate as Dex.
What would you see as the issue with using the tape right away? Yes, we use it immediately and it lasts 14 days and there are never any issues with irritating, itching, w/e.
For me then, I guess it would depend on how accurate and how small it is…
It just increases the footprint of everything. If a small patch of tape from the sensor starts to itch after a few days, I would think a bigger portion of skin being covered with tape would just be worse for me.
Plus, anything under the tape can’t be washed. When I get the sensor off, I practically scrub my skin off trying to wash the area, since it hasn’t been cleaned in days. 
I noticed that this was FDA approved yesterday.
Yep, none of that has ever been an issue. When we take everything of after two weeks we see no remnants of it having been there, except the some hole the sensor needle went in too.
We’ll keep this in mind though if we ever have any skin related issues. As far as keeping it clean the isn’t a need… it doesn’t get dirty under there.
For reference, we tried the dextape but it didn’t breathe as well as the Grif Grip. We put the Grif Grip on right away, we use 2-3 per sensor depending on how many weeks it goes. 1 per 5-7 days.
FYI, for the past 8-9 months our sensor life has dropped a lot. We typically get 8-10 days, but we have many sensors failing on 3rd day, so the average is more like 6 days. A year ago we typically got 12-13 days regularly, and no early failures ever.
At this stage I think it is a function of everyone’s body type.
My most accurate location is my back. It gets brushed up against a lot there, so I put OpSite Flexifix on it at insertion time. My skin doesn’t mind it or the Dexcom adhesive at all, thank goodness.
My Dexcom sensors have been losing signal a lot more in the last four months or so. And my accuracy is a lot less. I felt like my numbers were more accurate on the G4 or maybe it was the 7+. Whenever I switched to the G5, it seemed like it’s algorithm or something was doing a lot more “smoothing” of my readouts rather than giving the most accurate numbers like I’d seen on the previous generation. I theorized (and probably incorrectly) that maybe this was a change in anticipation of Closed Looping so that “smoother” read-outs would lead to more consistent responses in a loop system. No idea if that is accurate at all…but something I thought about.
I’m using sensors that expired in March, (currently last one from that batch). I am still getting 14-18 days per sensor. Current sensor on arm, on day 11.
I usually go the first week without anything added, then use skin-tac and iv-3000 adhesive when needed.
