My daughter is 8 and in the 40 percentile for height and weight. We started using the Dexcom G4 about 6 months ago. She had alot of sensor failures in the belly and lower back/butt area. She too never went a full week with using a sensor before it failed. We started using the arms and rarely get a failure these days. I know Dexcom does not suggest using the arms but we are finding alot of kids are doing it with pretty good results. We switch arms every other week and save the belly, lower back/butt, and thighs for the Omni Pod.
Okay, this sounds a bit flippant, but is not meant to be... Have you considered fattening her up a little?
Dave - I've been trying. Of course, giving a lot of carbs to a diabetic isn't easy, but she's slowly creeping up the percentiles in weight.
Hi all, I'm new to the group. I've been eavesdropping for quite some time b/c we were interested in getting a G4 for our 5 year old daughter, and we finally did it. Just started her on it about 10 days ago.
The first sensor we put on her belly - where she has practically no fat - and we were on day 8 when it came off b/c the adhesive was "done." Put another sensor on her yesterday - on the back of her upper arm (where we frequently put her pods) and it failed tonight after her swim lesson. First I saw the ??? then a couple of hours later got the Sensor Failed message. It was barely on for 24 hours! Any idea what could have happened? Was it the water? Although that doesn't seem right since it's waterproof. I thought maybe it was site placement on her arm, but then I read some of the replies here and many of you with young T1D kids have success on the arms.
I appreciate any thoughts or tips you all might have. So far we're off to a rough start.
Did you get any good advice? I can tell you what I know if you haven't, but we haven't had the same success with this system that most people have.
I have had this problem many times since I am really thin. It took me a while to find a good spot to put the sensor. I suggest that you experiment with different sites. Like the belly, arms, or even the rear. I hope this helps :)
A few of us have had good success with sensor placement on the upper thigh (1/3rd-1/2 the way from the hip to the knee, facing up if sitting). I would suggest covering the G4 sensor with hypafix tape or IV3000 with about a 1/2 inch overlap around the sensor's own tape. If tape comes up, skin tac (bottle) can be applied over the tape and it will permeate. What seemed to cause my sensors to fail was loosening or movement. Either the G4 sensor tape wouldn't hold, or the sensor would catch on clothing or something and loosen from it's pivot point.
Thanks for the suggestion Scott. We've never tried the thigh and will absolutely try that (and thanks for the detailed directions - that helps a lot!). I have wondered about movement and have used a lot of Hypafix in the past but haven't been able to determine anything.
Thanks for the suggestion puglove24. We've tried moving it around often, but haven't yet been able to find a consistent spot on my daughter. She's 9 and 5-10th percentile in weight, so finding a good spot is a bit challenging! :)
Hi Firehead,
Lately we've had success putting the sensor on my daughter's bum, just below the waistline. As I mentioned before, she is also thin with hardly any fat on her belly, so placement there was really painful for her. Putting it on her bum seems to have several advantages: (1) Since she has some padding there, the insertion isn't as painful, (2) we have had mostly accurate readings there, and (3) it's out of sight, so you don't see both her pod and sensor.
I also used tegaderm over the adhesive this past time and just restarted the sensor tonight to see how much longer we can get, so we are going on day 8. The tegaderm worked like a charm - she was in the pool for 4.5 hours straight on Sunday and it stayed on! While she was in the water, I turned the receiver off so it wouldn't constantly be searching for a signal and possibly give me the ??? and fail. I think I have some hypafix tape as well and might try that next time for comparison.
Missed your reply. Yes- I do vertically and then tape the two sides, then across top to keep it secured.