I swear, I could be Dexcom’s poster child for keeping the sensor in your abdomen. My first venture into alternate sites was my upper arm, which lasted all of 6 days. Although I didn’t have a problem with it staying on, the readings just weren’t terribly accurate. Since my initial trial in April, I’ve been able to get at least 10 days per sensor, and that makes the frugal part of me very happy. Less than my promised 7 days? Not so much. Plus, I rarely have the extra hands available to help me with the insertion when I need to change sites, so that just doesn’t prove to be very practical for me. So after that first attempt, I went back to my abdomen, as I was still early in my first trimester and had lots of squish left to make use of.
However, the real estate on my tummy has become pretty nonexistent, so I do need to find alternate sites that work well for me. So, I went with my thigh this round, following the advice of all the wonderful people on the Dexcom users group. The readings have been pretty good (at least for the first week), and that does make me happy. However, this particular placement has been more unstable than any other I’ve done. The adhesive was starting to peel up within hours of insertion! I’ve gone through IV-3000, tegaderm, Skin-Tac, and other tape trying to get it to stay put. Of course, it doesn’t help that we’re in the middle of a heat wave where I live, which means more sweating than usual…
I’m really hoping to get a few more days out of this one before it just falls off. I haven’t completely given up on my legs yet; I think next time, I’m going to try more upper than inner thigh to see if that helps…