Enlite sensors

Is there any way to make the enlite sensors last longer than six days?

recharge the xmitter and simply pretend its a new sensor when u reinstall the xmitter. good luck getting them to correctly read glucose for many days, however. :slight_smile:

I have my sensor taped to my body, so how can I undo the tape without disturbing the sensor?

very carefully! :slight_smile: I had 2 IV3000’s over mine and I managed to extricate the xmitter. It’s not always easy and also depends on where you wear the sensor. Mine was on my abdomen, same location as where I wear the G5 (which is orders of magnitude more accurate/dependable). Sometimes when I struggled, I’d get my wife to help steady the sensor. It’s not easy, but with practice you should be able to remove it and reinsert without pulling out the sensor. Good luck!

I only use one piece of taping and do not have issues removing transmitter b/c of this. And I usually get an extra 4 days by recharging and treating as a new sensor. Good luck!

If you can manage to remove it to charge the transmitter, technically yes. However, it is not recommended both for accuracy reasons as well as health reasons. Keeping the sensor in your body for that long is considered very harmful to your body. I would also try to ask your doctor if he can upgrade you to the 640G or 670G which uses the Guardian 3 sensor. When I used the Enlite, my numbers were always so off they were useless, not to mention I would constantly get errors like calibration errors, but once I upgraded to the Guardian 3 all my sensor problems disappeared and my numbers are much better.

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I think the same thing applies to both infusion sets & sensors, they are both a canula that stays inserted in your body, and if there are any minor differences due to the fact that infusion sets have insulin flowing through them, I would think it would be small enough that it doesn’t matter. And the transmitter battery does need recharged, so in my opinion, I’d rather just put in a new sensor than try to go through all the trouble of untaping the old one in a way that allows me to retape the new one in a usable way. Besides, even those parts of our bodies need washed once in a while.

My understanding is that they are two different things. For one, the pump canula is delivering insulin, so inflammation is much more of a concern as it inhibits insulin absorption. There may be a similar concern as to inflammation affecting sensor performance but in all the discussions about this topic I’ve read I haven’t encountered that before. In any case I keep a pretty close eye on my readings–I still finger-stick 4-6x/day–and I’ve never noticed any issue in the two weeks I usually run them. They’re very different in terms of the size of the cross section, a canula being much thicker than the fine filament of the sensor, and the materials are different as well. I’ve had bad sensor insertions, like everyone, but as a rule they’re almost imperceptible once they’re in the skin, and this is the first time I’ve heard anyone say there was an issue–scarring or anything like that–the way there is with cannulas.

Guess this is one of those YDMV things–if it’s a concern for you, you should definitely go ahead and change 'em, but I’m lazy and prefer extending sessions just to avoid the bother of having to swap them out so often.

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OK, maybe I was wrong in that statement, but I still think not washing an area of your body for more than about a week is bad, the transmitter still needs charged (meaning you need to manage to untape & retape in a way that works), and 7 days is still the recommended maximum usage time.

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I don’t get alot of highs but I do get alot of arrows. I wish the enlite had the same as dexcom where you could be slowly rising or falling. Not rising or falling more than 1 mmol in twenty minutes.

So when I inserted my last sensor I only had the first piece of tape on. I got some medical tape and put it straight across the transmitter to keep it stationary. It was easy to remove so I could charge the transmitter and reinsert it. Today is day 7. I’m thrilled that I could fool the technology. The bloody sensors are so expensive!

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