At about 4am last night, I woke up to soaked bedclothes, sheets and cover. This has happened twice before recently. I know I need to lower my basal dosage dosage at night, but what I am troubled about is my Dexcom G7 DID NOT ALERT ME. I got out of bed and checked and I was 47. I had been that way for an hour. I know you can’t silence or turn off that alert, but it did not go off, until I got up and actually opened the app and checked, and then it rang the alert you get when you are very low. I had been that low for about an hour. I am hoping you kind folks have a suggestion for me (I know how to treat, I want to know what’s up with the Dexcom app.) I am MDI. Thanks.
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I remember that terrible feeling from my before CGM days.
Android or iOS? Was your phone charging? If not charging what was the battery % when you checked it?
From your description it sounds like the app had been stopped or suspended. I don’t have a phone charger within reach of my bed so I quit everything but Dexcom and the alarm app before I go to sleep to make sure my iphone knows it has one job,
There was a useless warning from the FDA about phones and diabetes devices this month. FDA Alerts Patients to Regularly Check Diabetes-Related Smartphone Device Alert Settings, Especially Following Phone Hardware or Software Changes: FDA Safety Communication | FDA.
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Call Dexom. I have the opposite problem. it rings when I am not low, if I am sleeping on the arm that the sensor is inserted in. That stinks. I used to have those early on in our marriage. I’m sorry you’re going through this.
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Can you be certain that you were not sleeping through the alarm while it was going off? I have seen in the past that I can sleep through a lot of noise when low so it seems possible that your brain was just ignoring the alarm while you got lower and lower.
I don’t use the Dexcom app, I use xDrip instead. Alarms are very configurable in the xDrip app, and I chose an extremely annoying alarm that alarms continuously until I quiet it. My high alarm is much less annoying and very short lasting. It will wake me up eventually if my BG continues to go up, but I don’t treat it as a crisis situation.
Hopefully you can perform similar configuration in the Dexcom app, making it louder and more annoying, placing your phone closer to you etc.
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Thanks for all you helpful suggestions. I am using an Iphone, the phone was fully charged, I am a very light sleeper, I don’t (unfortunately) sleep through anything, I checked the alerts and they were all set the way I intended.
I don’t know if this is related, but often when I click the Dexcom app, to check my numbers, it takes a long time to open. I am used to it opening immediately with the graph showing my current reading, but now it stays a blank screen for a minute or so before it opens.
I guess I should call Dexcom, but I have never found them particularly helpful, especially if your problem is off their script.
Only thing I can thing of, is to delete the app and open it newly from the app store. No idea if this will be productive, or if I will lose the stored data (which is important to me and my endo).
Thoughts?
Would still call re: this. It caused you harm- 47.
Could this particular sensor be faulty? Hope you can prevent recurrence.
If you want to make sure that you don’t lose any data (or at least know what you might be losing), login to clarity.dexcom.com to see what data has been pushed to the cloud before you uninstall the Dexcom app.
- Greg
Great, I’m also using an iPhone with the dexcom app. Have you updated to iOS 18.2 or 18.3?
The app taking a long time to load indicates something else on your phone is slowing it down. Could be an app, could be a Safari tab. Quit everything but the dexcom app and then don’t use the phone for 10 minutes while the phone works on quitting all the apps in the background. Try the dexcom app again. Any better? If not quit the dexcom app and reboot the phone. Open the dexcom app, it’ll be slow the first time but going from the home screen to the dexcom app with no other apps running should be speedy. If its not then reinstall the app. Don’t worry about loosing data, between Clarity and iCloud at most you could loose a few hours of data
Personally I wouldn’t bother talking to Dexcom because my phone is my responsibility. And their gosh awful script.
Been there!!! For me, the alarms on my Dexcom 7 are WAY too soft to be of any use. And, from time to time don’t even go off. With my Dexcom 6 the alarms were great. For some reason Dexcom pushed out the 7 with this buggy alarm. I called Dexcom multiple times & although they tried various solutions they were never of any help. This was very troubling for me because I also get really low bg episodes during the night. Recently I got a Sugar Pixel to remedy this issue & it is GREAT!!! Looks like an alarm clock & has an alarm that, as they say, could wake the dead. Costs about $100. Search “Sugar Pixel” & check out their website. See what you think. I am so grateful for this piece of technology & can’t imagine ever being without it. For diabetics who may sleep thru a CGM alarm (for whatever reason) this is a solution & may be a lifesaving one.
I’ve heard of some people who use both audible and vibrating alarms. They place their receiver in a metal glass so the vibration is more annoying. Maybe something like that?
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Have you considered filing an adverse event report with the FDA?
Dexcom has made the deliberate decision to hold its customers at arms length via an off-shore script controlled customer service department. I can sympathize with daunting costs and nuisance that the company faces but shouldn’t they allow some way for patients to elevate certain problems to state-side knowledgable and authoritative staff who can actually fix these thornier issues?
I realize that this “solution” does not offer an easy way to fix your problem, but how can we, as patients, address technical aspects of their products that the typical script reader could not hear much less fix?
Thinking further about your problem, I offer a more pragmatic way to deal with this situation. I, too, use an iPhone in conjunction with the Dexcom app to give me vital hypoglycemia alarms.
Since I realize that my knowledge of current phone technology is limited, I pay for access to Apple help for the situation you find yourself. It seems that you’re trying to clear up poor or missing communication between your iPhone and the Dexcom app. When I have these kind of problems, I call the 1-800 help line and request help.
This service has proven invaluable to me. The customer service people are good communicators as well as highly competent technicians. They often request authority for remote access so they can actually see what you see when viewing your phone.
They always fix whatever I am calling about, 100% of the time. Perhaps more knowledge on my part would make this service unnecessary but I do not have that level of ability. I’m happy to pay for it.
Just an idea.
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Terry, as usual, you are terrific. I don’t subscribe to apple help, but I will call their help line and perhaps they will provide assistance. Will follow up (hopefully) when the problem is resolved.