Any advice on how to make the G6 more accurate and reliable?

I agree with your thoughts. We should all do what works for us. Jane

Meh, I might calibrate once per sensor/restart.
The last two sensors I havenā€™t calibrated at all, and I have 21 days on the previous, and am restarting the next sensor right now.
The presoak makes all the difference for me though.
I use my abdomen, and I do not have the inserter pressed against my body when I click it, I have it slightly pulled away. This works for a perfect angle for me.

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@Hammer I know a lot of people make the mistake of pressing the applicator but I have not heard of holding it away some. May I ask why you do that? I know you said it makes the perfect angle, but how does it change it? Curious minds want to know!

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After many years with the g5 and g6, I realized that I was inserting the sensor wire a at an angle it didnā€™t want to be at. When I slightly lift it before clicking, I feel it goes in at a more natural angle. After insertion it seems to feels neutral to me. I knew this on the g5, but had a very hard time doing it right. The g6 makes it easy for me to get right for me.

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Its stranger than that, @Marie20. Let do a deep, unpleasant dive into the bureaucracy of medicine, lol. Its that Medicare only covers devices that can function independently, all on their own. Its some governmental rule. So, if you use a BS machine as a peripheral device, then Medicare canā€™t legally cover the sensor.

So, yeah, I agree with Marie. Use manual finger sticks.

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My n=1 experiment having gone directly from the G4 to the G6 is this:

The G6 is more accurate, but also more sensitive to where it is placed and the ā€œqualityā€ of the interstitial fluid itā€™s reading. I was fairly unsuccessful when I just treated the G6 like it was a direct swap out for the G4.

My current regime (aka - THIS WORKS FOR ME!):

  • No restarts

  • Rotate sensor locations w/30 days between sensor areas

  • Calibrate whenever I am uncomfortable with the fingerstick v CGM readings

  • Call for sensor replacement if Iā€™m constantly having to calibrate beyond the 20 rule

The single biggest of these is sensor site rotation, my failure rate has dropped from over 60% to the single digits since adopting this method. My skin just doesnā€™t like having foreign objects stuck in it, so I must give that area a break to heal from the trauma.

One other little change I made was to insert new sensors around 8PM. Previously I had always changed in the mornings. This allows me to have a new sensor in and complete the warm-up before heading to bed. It also gets me around the ā€œflawā€ of 10-day wear periods. In my mind, I live my life in weeks. With the G4, that meant I could pick a day of the week that best fit my schedule and always change it on that day. With the G6, I didnā€™t have that luxury, and I found myself needing to do a hurried sensor change before dashing off to work, or when I was off work and about to head out for an adventure/sleep in/etc, etc.

I appreciate your comments, @YogaO. I only have two G4 sensors left to use before I switch to the G6. Since I use CGM data to inform insulin delivery with Loop, Iā€™m a little wary about inserting a sensor near bedtime. I could adjust by going open-loop for that first night, if necessary.

I primarily use the backs of my arms and shift from side to side and try to avoid reusing the exact spot as a prior sensor when I insert. I do notice that I have a sore spot near my left armpit that is still sensitive to the touch that I believe is pain referred from the actual sensor site further down my arm and pulled over 12 days ago.

Iā€™m thinking of using the love handle area but around to the back since the G6 looks well suited to one hand application.

Iā€™m curious why you avoid sensor restarts. Is it because the sensor performance degrades after about seven days and you donā€™t want to push it?

Good to hear from you.

Sounds like you have a pretty good rotation routine similar to mine. I always go from left to right even on my infusion sets.

The main reason I avoid restarts is because of the skin issues. While I got away with many restarts using the G4, the G6ā€™s sensitivity engaged my thinking gears. I reasoned that if we need to rotate our infusion sites to avoid scar tissue and maintain the ability to absorb the infused insulin, wouldnā€™t a similar effect apply to the CGM sensor? When I also thought that even though Iā€™m old, I want to keep living, so keeping my skin healthy and able to accept the tech that Iā€™m forced to stick into it is important not just today, but for the foreseeable future, that sealed the deal for me.

With my current COVID19 schedule of ā€œStay at Home Everydayā€, I could go back to a morning change out, or maybe an early evening change out, but I was also being annoyed by alarms. Thereā€™s an alarm letting you know you will need to change the sensor in 6 hours, 2 hours, and a final one @ 30 minutes. That meant for a 7AM change out, I would get an alarm @ 1AM, 5AM and 6:30AM ā€“ SHEESH!

I hope the G6 works well for you.

As you know the G4 also has that end of sensor alarm schedule. I havenā€™t been bothered by it or I would have emphasized a change-out in the early afternoon. Maybe the cell phone app or the G6 receiver have a bigger voice than the G4 receiver.

Iā€™m also hoping the G6 performs at least as well as the G4. I did an informal survey on a Facebook thread during the last year about how well people liked the G6. I had several hundred responses and a large majority, like 80%, were highly favorable. I hope I fall into the fat part of the bell-curve on this.

I am considering getting a G6. What is ā€œpre soakā€

Inserting a new sensor but not putting in a transmitter.
Letting the sensor ā€˜soakā€™ in your interstitial fluids helps cut down on the initial wild numbers that can be seen with the G6.
I soak mine overnight and swap the transmitter to it in the morning. I get far better/stable numbers this way.

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Thank you

Original poster here. I am just reporting back on the accuracy. We found the accuracy to be excellent on this sensor right straight through to day 10. This was the sensor that we waited 36 hours to calibrate. It had very good accuracy when we checked it several times throughout the week. For this current sensor, we soaked it about 14 hours before starting it. It was about 2 mmols off after the warm-up so we calibrated. It is now very close to the glucometer reading. Iā€™m feeling much more confident that it is giving us accurate numbers. We will likely still continue to check once a day to make sure itā€™s still in tune with reality. Thanks to everyone for their good advice.

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I would suggest trying it without pre-soaking and an immediate calibration at least once, too. The pre-soak is useful for some, but others find it unnecessary.

My newest sensor was way off straight outta the gate. It read LOW, manual stick = 86.
I calibrated twice before bed. It shut down because it could see it was broken.
This morning, I got a warning that it had failed.
Dried blood visible at the insertion site.

3rd failure in a row. Iā€™m kinda giving up on even wearing one.

Were they all in the same box? It seems like the catastrophic ones go out in batches, but when theyā€™re good, theyā€™re great. Please donā€™t give up yet!

No, this one came in its own single sensor box because it was a replacement they shipped for a stuck insertion device. Iā€™ll try again nowā€¦just gotta keep at it.

I have had pretty good luck with mine. But the last one was off from the beginning and I had to calibrate it a lot over the first few days. So I decided to try restarting it and then it was okay for a few days and then it was off again. I tried calibrating for a couple of days, but it would revert to being off. Then I tried to restart it again and it started at over a 100 points off.

So I just gave up on it and pulled it off. Iā€™m glad I did. I am back to a new sensor that is much better and may I have many restarts on it!!! I like to keep the ones that are behaving!

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I havenā€™t been having sensor issues, but somehow am suddenly allergic to the adhesive. Itā€™s so odd, Iā€™ve never had chemical sensitivities before, but the last two sensors have been horrible itchy messes. I wonder if theyā€™ve changed the adhesive or something? Hopefully I donā€™t claw this one off before the tegaderm arrives in the mail!

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Some use a product called skin-prep for a barrier.