Cleaning a dead sensor and re-insert it

I've seen an article about sensor cleaning and re-inserting
for the Abbott Navigator. With the Navigator's shot machine it seems
that it is possible to stretch it with the cleaned sensor again. Maybe it is possible with the Dexcom's shot machine, too? This seems to be very difficult and tricky. BUT what about removing only the sensor by unhinging the contact plate and then put it into a glass of water (boiled). Take it out and dry it with cellulose. Maybe you have to repeat this procedure several times. After that you have to re-insert it into the hole (just a little bit 2mm-3mm) and mount the contact plate with the plastic frame. I know, that the sensor doesn't have to be placed into the whole hole for it's measurements - 2mm-3mm should be enough. What do you think? Sounds
strange, eh? ;) But it's worth a try - especially when the sensor only lasts one week. I think if you're glad and the sensor lasts about 3-4
weeks, the enzyme is dead and no cleaning process will reactivate it ;)

I'm pretty sure this will not work. The Dexcom works due to a chemical change that occurs on the material that's inserted in your body. Over time the material change renders it useless as it's chemical makeup changes and eventually becomes no longer reactive to the enzymes it measures.

Yes, but what about the Abbott's sensor? Why does it work there?

For a ton of reasons, I am just floored to be reading this... Anyway, here's a pic of a 17 days old sensor

Why not clean it in silver polish while we are at it?

Here the link:
http://www.insuliner.de/insublog/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Insuliner102-Leseprobe.pdf
It's only an extract, but you can read the index on site 54.

Sensor setzen im zweiten Versuch

- Translation: "Sensor insertion - the second trial"

:D That's what i thought the first time i've heard about that. Maybe
the sensor technique from Abbott is really different?

The enzyme is actually embedded in the sensor. The enzyme in the sensor turns glucose from interstitial fluid into a signal whose strength is proportional to the amount of glucose. Sensors stop working eventually because the body's defenses against injuries try to "heal" the foreign material by coating it with something like scar tissue. Even though nothing in the sensor gets "used up", I'm surprised that soaking it in water cleans it up well enough without damaging it to get it working again, not to mention the difficulty of re-inserting a fragile sensor without an insertion needle.

As i said - this is not interesting for the people with a sensor life of 2-3 weeks. But Marty, it can be exactly that reason that you guess. Premature breakdown caused by the healing process. Then a cleaning process can fix the problem. And yes - it will be tricky to re-insert a fragile sensor - but worth a try.

That sensor is *tiny* and the "hole," assuming it isn't entirely clotted over by the time this process is completed, will be the same, inflamed/scarring-activated location that you removed it from. So how would that help, exactly and, if it did, for how long? Even if this could be made to "work," however that might be defined, I'd be shocked if accuracy were anything better than terrible. It's also bad for the long-term integrity of your tissue as a prospective insertion site. None of this makes much sense.

It might be better to focus on *why* you're only able to get 7 days out of it in the first place when most patients seem to be able to get more.

- Do you press the plunger firmly but slowly/steadily all the way to minimize trauma?

- Do you rotate sites carefully?

- Do you try to "follow the grain" of your skin on insertion, i.e. choose the angle of the sensor so that the probe is close to parallel to the hair follicles, to minimize trauma?

- Do your sleep habits make it likely that your weight falls on your chosen insertion areas?

- Does your sensor remain well-secured? Might you need to add Tegaderm or Flexifix to keep it so?

- Is your BG highly variable or do you have a relatively tight coefficient of variance?

These would be places to start in search for long sensor life.

Thanks for the hints, Biomuse. My sensors are lasting on an average of 10 days.
I never have tested this procedure with a complete take out. But what i've tested successfully and practice is to lift the sensor in it's hole. This would reactivate a crazy or bad sensor after the insertion - also a few days later. And this will reactivate it when "???" is displayed permanently.

OK. Question: will simply shutting down the sensor and recalibrating in place (during a good, level BG period for calibration, which seems to be more important than anything) achieve the same result?

No, it's no use. But yesterday - i've found out, that the trick to lift
up the sensor - making a kink - doesn't work fine with a G4 Sensor. Before i've used my remainder of Seven+ sensors. With them the trick works fine. But with the new G4 ones, it's dangerous, because a kink can cause a short circuit and can destroy you transmitter batteries. This happened to me. Before making the kink, i've read an power output of 0.022V from the transmitter. After the kink i mount the transmitter to the sensor pod and 10 min later - no connection!? I've removed the transmitter again and then the power output was 0.00V :( OOPS! So today i've changed the batteries of my transmitter and i've seen a little bump in both batteries (short circuit). For that reason i can close this thread, because even it would be possible to refresh the sensor a little bit, a complete re-insert is impossible and would require a kink.