For all you cgm’ers looking at a future switch to G6 (voluntary or not): I leapfrogged the G5 system and went from G4 to G6 about half a year ago. I thought I’d share some thoughts, I’ll try not to be too repetitive with what is already on many other threads here over the last year or more. So, my G6 review so far:
Accuracy. Much better (again, everything here is based on my prior experience with G4), and to be able to do it with little or even no calibration is an impressive advancement for Dex and clearly a convenience. However, the first 24 hours can be really wonky and the false lows are extremely annoying. I pretty much write off the first day and use strips until after things settle in.
Adhesion. There were a lot of comments about poor adhesion with G6 initially, and I guess Dex is reformulating their compounds to get a new generation just right. I find it about right for 10-day use with normal wear and tear (well, accidental tearing off is a whole different story we’ve all dealt with). I secure the pad edges with strips of Opsite Flexifix for continued use after the first 10 days.
Inserter. Clunky sounding and pretty big waste volume, but I’ve not yet experienced the inserter troubles others have shared here. A bit less sensation than the G4/G5 inserter.
Failure. If I rode a sensor out to the bitter end, I could usually get about 14-20 days from my G4 sensors, with the last several days requiring some patience. I haven’t done that with many G6 sensors, but it seems I can get about 20 days. When it’s done providing good data, it dies out pretty fast, about a day.
Restarting. I like that I can restart the G6 at or before 10 days. There are so many times, especially with work or travel, when a hard 10-day replacement/reset is highly inconvenient or impossible for me. Like with G4, I can restart the G6 at, say, 5 or 6 days and skip over a time that happens to be 10 days out from the original insertion and when I know I can’t do a new sensor. I dread that Dex might make this impossible. Unless, of course, they and the pharmacy benefit managers agree to provide more than the minimum number of sensors required for the maximum expected duration of use. Hahahahaha!
Receiver. Most people use phones and the cloud I’m sure, so the fact that the receiver is basically just a double-chunky version of the ancient G4+Share receiver probably doesn’t matter much to most G6 users. But that’s what it is.
Transmitter. Those G4’s were great, they’d last a year. The G6 transmitter is a slimmer profile that is noticeably nicer, but like the G5, it is intended to be used 3 months and thrown out (I wish Dex at least had a mail-back transmitter/battery recycling program; it’s the right thing to do). Transmitters have always seemed way overpriced for what they are, but I digress.
Next Generations. So it seems G7 is well in the works, with a longer single-use time (I think I read the target was 14 or 15 days), and an integrated sensor + nonremovable battery/transmitter. If that’s true, I have typical concerns about the hard replace period, and about more waste.
That was longer than I intended but there you go!
