My Dexcom G6 experience
I was seeing, what I consider to be, high glucose readings on my Dexcom G6. Reading was over 300mg/dl. This was very unusual for me and I did not use my meter to check the results. I bolused a large correction at dinner time as my reading was 264mg/dl on my G6. After dinner the readings were still high, but in the low 100s. Later that evening/early morning, the G6 receiver indicated loss of signal; and continued to show the signal loss for several hours. After three hours, I replaced the transmitter without replacing the sensor as it only had a few days on it, waited 20 minutes. At this point there was no obvious way to pair the new transmitter. So, on the receiver, I pushed Stop Sensor and the display came up âNEW SENSORâ. I pushed the New Sensor button. I keyed in the old sensor code when prompted. Then on the transmitter menu on the receiver I was able to pair the new transmitter to the old sensor. Once done, I put in the new transmitter serial number when prompted. Pressed start sensor button and sensor went into 2 hour warm up. After the warm up and breakfast the next morning, he receiver indicated 269mg/dl and the meter indicated 143mg/dl.
The transmitter never gave a failure notification; it just could not communicate with the receiver and continued to display âloss of signalâ for multiple hours. If it could not communicate to the receiver, no matter what the sensor reading was, my logic was to replace the transmitter. Once this was done as described above, the sensor came back but was reading 224mg/dl and multiple meter readings (2 different meters) were 122, 125, 122 mg/dl. At this point, I replaced the sensor.
Now the new sensor has finished warm up. It has a new transmitter and everything is communicating. The readings are what is expected (around 130mg/dl).
What did I do wrong? It was a terrible night with little to no sleep. Other than going back to finger sticks, there seems to be no way to have any confidence in the G6 readings. My lessons learned are the following;
- Never trust your Dexcom completely. Trust but verify.
- You need to have spares for all the Dexcom parts.
Your thoughts and comments would be appreciated.