I used to do this when my G5 started to give strange results. It worked about 80% of the time. I took it to mean the algorithm used gets ‘lost’ and needs to reset, but who knows. Glad you tried this successfully with the G6. I’ll keep this in my ‘flaky sensor’ tool kit.
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Really interesting articles! Thanks for posting,
While it does give me some pause to consider what I might be doing to day 1 and 2 readings when I presoak, nothing could be worse than the looney toons data I get if I don’t presoak. No matter what, its an improvement. I might do a few more finger sticks in the first two days after presoak to see it for myself.
As for restart, I’ll begin paying more attention in the first two days. I haven’t noticed any problems, but then again I haven’t looked. If it turns out to be really bad, I’ll just restart with no code and use it like my G5.
Yes, this is where I read about the G6 soaking, too! Thank you for posting the link!
FWIW, I found that soaking my G5 helped as well. But I find it crucial with the G6.
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I tried it out last night. But decided a bit late to do it! 
I finally decided I wouldn’t try to restart the sensor, and instead, just do the pre-soak, but that left only 6 hours for me to do the soaking before the sensor expired. STILL, that greatly helped. Sensor BGs are looking much better than my last change. I did do one calibration which may not have been necessary but it had a straight up arrow at 160, and fingerstick showed 139. Unfortunately, I also did an OmniPod change this morning which is giving me severe insulin resistance, complicating the situation a bit! 
Thanks again for your posts on the pre-soaking!!!
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Sorry for my ignorance but what does it mean to presoak?
PS- I just got an alert that my sons sensor will expire in 24 hours. I’ve NEVER gotten that message before because his sensors ALWAYS fail between days 4 & 7. He’s almost 5 yrs old and on the G6. We’ve had a love/hate relationship with it since we started about 9 months ago. And we even took a month long break from it because it was innacurate most of the time.
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12 - 24 hours BEFORE your G6 sensor expires, insert a new G6 but do not activate it, and do not add the transmitter. Continue using your original G6 sensor until it expires, then follow the instructions to replace the G6 (ie., stop sensor, remove transmitter) upon its expiration. Then start the new sensor which you earlier inserted and add the transmitter.
This process is supposed to bring your newly, inserted sensor to ready-state, getting it accustomed to your body, which allows for more accurate BG readings on Day 1 of use.
This has largely worked for me today, with just a 6 hour pre-soak. I will probably do 12 hours next sensor change,
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I understand. I change my G5 early in the morning and it’s fine all day. Then starts the lows in the middle of the night. And 48 seems to be the magic number. I finger stick, cover if I need to and turn off my phone. I am always normal the next morning. Annoying.
I’ve tried presoaking the G6 12, 8, 6, and 4 hours before starting a new sensor and for me the best results come between 6-8 hours of soaking. Nothing extra really gained by a 12 hour soak.
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Thanks so much for this feedback! Glad to know that 6-8 hours will be sufficient!
I think the time needed to soak is going to be personal. It is what it takes to adjust to YOUR body. And we know how that goes!
I have done shorter soaks, and they still work.
But overnight works best FOR ME.
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Convenience is important for me so on the G5 I do my changes or reset every Saturday morning at 5:45 AM so that during the week I can calibrate at 8 AM and 8 PM. When I soak sensor, best time is after my daily 8:10 AM Friday morning shower so that I just put in sensor and don’t deal with adding an old transmitter. The sensor has no issues soaking for the 24 hours without a transmitter. Additionally, my body more readily accepts a sensor after a hot shower than when the body is at normal temperature.
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I haven’t had any issues with the G6 giving false lows but I have been presoaking the sensors for 12 hours because my sensors end at midday and that is a pretty bad time for me to have to fiddle with skintac and whatnot. I did forget to insert the sensor the night before once and that sensor was a little less reliable the whole way through than all of the presoaked sensors so I make sure to give them some time to acclimate.
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This is us! Although restarting has not been successful, perhaps ever. I think a couple of times Caleb had data for a couple hours and that’s it.
@DrBB I’ve seen more than one strategy about restart - which is odd to me bc previous generations only required you to restart. I don’t understand the multiple steps people now do and Caleb is the one who does them so it’s even more intangible to me.
Can you tell me exactly what you do to restart a sensor?
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Apparently there are different methods depending on what device you’re working from, the phone app or the receiver. I don’t have the receiver so I do the phone app one. It seems like a lot of steps, but the basic idea is to clear the “code” setting, which is there to ensure only one session per sensor. So the idea is to start a “new” session on the same sensor, don’t enter a code, let the warm-up run for 15 minutes which clears the code setting, then “end session” canceling the warm-up, and do it all over again except that now you can enter the code (which you’ve cleverly noted down somewhere from the original insert—having screwed that up the first time I now make a habit of taking a phone pic every time I insert one).
Step-by-step:
- Let the sensor session expire.
- Select “start new session” without changing the sensor.
- Select “no code” at the enter code prompt. It will warn you that you’ll have to do calibrations if you do that. Accept that condition and start the session.
- Allow the warm-up to run for 15 minutes.
- Cancel the session (more warnings will appear, but do it anyway).
- Select “start new session.” This time when the code prompt appears, you can enter the same code you carefully took a picture of when you originally inserted the sensor.
- Start the session and from here on it’s just like starting a real new sensor.
Like I say, the whole procedure revolves around clearing that code setting. You might think it would be sufficient to just say “no code” (step 3) and go from there, just accepting that you’ll have to do calibrations for the duration, but I gather it doesn’t work—apparently you have to cancel out of the warm-up to clear it. Anyway I like not having to calibrate. The one thing I have noticed is that you really do have to give it 15 min. before interrupting the warm-up. The one time I did it too soon the re-boot failed and I had to start over.
The nice thing is that it also works for recovering a sensor that’s gotten off on the wrong foot, the way mine did in the OP, which is really handy to know. That seems like a legitimate procedure even if rolling over an expired sensor is unsanctioned. But I guess they can’t tell you about one without giving away the game on the other.
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Thanks, these are some of clearest instructions I’ve read!!! 
I’ve read that if you have the receiver, you can continue to get BG readings during the warm up period on your phone, while the receiver is doing the warm up in the microwave:
I haven’t tried either methods yet because so far I’ve only had one sensor last 10 days. Current sensor has already experienced sensor errors a couple of times, but eventually reconnected. I’m hoping at some point I can try out the restart at 10 days!!
I successfully restarted the sensor using one of the iPhone methods -
Stop sensor
Start ‘new’ sensor with no code
Wait 15 minutes and stop sensor
Start ‘new’ sensor using original code
Perhaps the results would be different with one of the other restart methods.
The transmitter was made on March 5th 2019
The paper suggests that presoaking or restarting the sensor may lead to faulty data. The factory precalibration assumes you start the sensor just after insertion. but when you presoak or restart, the sensor has been in for a far longer period before start. The gist of the article is don’t restart.
I was concerned about this so I took data after I restarted my last sensor (10 days after insertion):
Hour 1 - Sensor 68 finger stick 75
Hour 3 - Sensor 85 finger stick 82
Hour 14 - Sensor 118 finger stick 105
I can’t explain this. This data suggests the calibration curves are relatively flat while the paper (and other sources I’ve seen) say the sensor output changes rapidly in the first 24 hours after insertion.
But I’m comfortable with these numbers. I’ll continue restarting. As always, YDMV so don’t take this as universally applicable.
I’ll probably do a similar test the next time I presoak.
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Yes, please test the presoak, if you don’t mind. I am really worried about how I will do this. Its good to have some first hand knowledge because Colorado did a REALLY small study. Only two people. I think I’m gonna use my G4 and G6 and compare the two. I am scared of a new sensor.
I ran the g5 at the same time as the g6 for about a week or so. It didn’t take me long to stop using the g5…
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