I started a new sensor last night. Didn’t think anything about it, just started it and went along with my evening.
Eventually after a few hours, something caught my eye on my shirt.
![]()
I started a new sensor last night. Didn’t think anything about it, just started it and went along with my evening.
Eventually after a few hours, something caught my eye on my shirt.
![]()
Yikes!!! ![]()
I got off the phone with DexCom just 5 minutes ago with sensor problems. But nothing so serious as that.
I’ve never seen anything like that extreme. Has it happened before to you?
(on a tangential topic, I think Dexcom’s customer service remains very good. My sensor gave out a couple of days early, and I got some helpful troubleshooting as well as a new sensor from CS rep Mai in the Philippines).
I’ve had a few wacky ones, but that one might be the worst!
At least it will be rock solid once it settles down. Bleeders are a PITA for the first 24 hours or so, then great for the duration.
Is that a G4? Out of curiosity, why are you still using that? Does Dexcom even support it these days?
It’s a G6.
Probably hard to tell because of all the blood.
![]()
It did look like G4 in the original picture. Here is a better picture.
It’s annoying & it does happen. You probably hit a vein or sensitive spot.
The worst I’ve had was with my pump both times in the middle of the night sleeping. It hit an artery & I had to put pressure on it & wash it off in the shower. I had no idea I hit an artery until I took it off & almost Monty Python blood came out.
I’m not quite dead yet! lol
Had a similar event quite a while back when I still used G6s (not that it’s the device, I’m sure it isn’t)! It was a dark and stormy night…(sorry, for effect only!). I applied a new sensor on my stomach at night, nothing different or painful about it, no notice of bleeding immediately. After about 15-20 minutes, I noticed a “wet” feeling on one of my arms resting in my lap; looked down and thought I’d spilled something on myself at first, only to find that distinctive red color and smell of blood soaking thru my pajama top where the new sensor was located; it had started soaking the PJ bottoms as well! After soaking a couple of paper towels applying pressure and it not working, I removed the sensor so I could apply pressure at the picture site; it stopped after a minute or two. I cleaned up myself, washed the pajamas, and re-applied a sensor elsewhere! I gave the site a rest (my rotation schedule of about 20 days), then started using it again. I’ve had a couple of “bleeders” since, but never that bad again and am careful to avoid “apparent” veins looking sites. Have switched to the G7, had a few blood “spots” but nothing like that one!
Glad to know I’m not the only one! It’s probably something we all are likely to experience at some point, but none the less “exciting” when it happens! Moral of the story: If you like your clothes, check your gear after application!
I’ve had this happen with the Libre 3 before; begins bleeding out the hole in the sensor. A few times quite a bit, and a few times it wasn’t apparent while the sensor was attached, but when after removing the sensor, clearly there had been a lot of bleeding between the sensor and skin. In the cases where it didn’t bleed externally, the sensor seemed to function, but in the cases when the bleeding exited the hole in the sensor, the sensor failed soon thereafter.
Failure has been a constant thing on the Abbott products. The Dexcom are a close second. The failures on the Libre sensors were a combination of complete failures, or more commonly readings so far off the mark that they became useless…or repeated low glucose alarms at night…when fingersticks showed glucose to be just fine. The Dexcom sensors have provided false readings some of the time, but more often simply fail…most commonly on installation, when the probe fails to penetrate the skin, and backs out the hole in the sensor…or the sensor simply indicates failed shortly after installation. I’m a revolving door of replacements from Dexcom. It’s almost like they expect it.
I haven’t had that happen with a sensor, but it has definitely happened with an insulin site. In fact, it happened last week when I went to change my site. Oddly, the site had worked fine for 3.5 days, but when I put in the new site and went to pull out the old site…OMG, you would have thought I had been stabbed!