Just got a dexcom 5. What is the most useful tip in your experience?
Only input a blood sugar when you are steady even if it means ignoring the blood drop symbol for several hours. And only if the CGM is off by more than 20%.
When you experience a low and treat it, do not use your CGM to determine whether to continue to treat it, in other words eat some more just because your CGM still shows low. It is at these low “turn-arounds” that the 15-minute lag of the CGM can really trip you up. If you think you’re still low and you want to do a second round of food, just do the fingerstick to see if that’s a good idea.
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What @Terry4 said applies on the high end, too – I’ve found that, while the CGM is usually quite helpful alerting me to a low (or high), it tends to be quite slow in making the turn back – sometimes even quite a bit longer than the “15-minute lag.” (Consider that, as stated, glucose in interstitial fluids lags behind BG by 10 to 15 minutes, but the CGM software is trying to account for that thru calculations – those seem less reliable when recovering from an extreme…)
Another tip – I usually use sensors more than one week (by re-starting it after the session ends). Works well for me, and many others, but not everyone – and it’s “off-label” so not recommended by Dexcom…
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Do NOT SHUT DOWN the CGM between changes of transmitters!!! ONLY “Stop Sensor”.
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If you don’t know already, you can use your CGM for longer than the “recommended” 7 days…most people in this community use theirs for 2 weeks or more. My 2 year old wears his for 2 weeks. To do this, when the time runs out on the current session, just “Stop Sensor”, then “Start Sensor” again without changing anything out. Wait the 2 hours, get the 2 blood drop readings, and vwhala, you have a new 7 day session started.
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Make sure to set your alarms so that you can hear any emergencies during the night. We use “Attentive”
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To keep our CGM on long enough we perform the following steps:
a) Clean site really well with alcohol wipes
b) Apply “Skin-Tac” to the whole area you will have both the sensor installed, as well as any tape over top of the sensor.
c) Apply the sensor when the skin is almost dry from the skin-tac, but not totally dry.
d) Complete getting the sensor fully set up.
e) Apply Tegaderm film over top of the sensor (with a hole cut in it big enough to have the sensor pass through it.)
f) If, during the course of a week or two weeks we see the tape peeling up, I trim away the part that’s peeling away and, if enough peels away, I’ll apply new tape on top of the old tape.
g) When you are ready to remove the sensor from the site, use “Uni-Solve” to make removing the tape easier.
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You can change the low and high alerts based on your activity level. For example, I set my low alert to 100 when I am doing heavy yard work–makes me stop, hydrate, eat a small snack as needed.
Thank you all for this wonderful advice, will take it to heart!
CALIBRATING YOUR DEXCOM G5 (or G-whatever)
There are “good” and “not-so-good” ways to calibrate. The following is what has worked well for my daughter:
1 After starting a new sensor (or re-starting one that’s still working at the 7-day mark), wait at least 15 minutes between the first two calibrations. Calibrate at least two hours after a meal or after treating a low BG.
2 Although it can be very tempting, do not calibrate more than twice daily and only when requested to do so. *Exception: I throw in one to two extra calibrations during the first 12 hours of a new sensor if the numbers are a little wonky.
**Sometimes I get a little calibration-happy when my daughter’s sensor is getting a little “ripe”, i.e. over 15 plus days old, if the Dex readings seem significantly wonky. (At which point, she’d be better off if I just bit the bullet and put in a new sensor.)
3 CALIBRATE ONLY WHEN THE DIRECTIONAL ARROW IS HORIZONTAL. I repeat: CALIBRATE ONLY WHEN THE DIRECTIONAL ARROW IS HORIZONTAL. Trust me on this! Your sensor continues to function after the big red blood drop screams at you to calibrate right now. Tell it to hold its horses and you’ll calibrate when you’re good and ready (when the directional arrow mellows out and becomes horizontal.) No ones Dexcom has stopped working or imploded, creating a black hole that engulfed the universe, because they didn’t calibrate the instant the Red Drop of Dexcom appeared.
4 Try to avoid calibrating when BG is below 80 or over 200. Correct and get your BG within this range (80 - 200) and then calibrate ONCE THE DIRECTIONAL ARROW IS HORIZONTAL.
5 Learn to question the accuracy of your BG meter as much as, if not more than, your Dexcom. Personally, I trust the Dexcom more often than I trust the BG meter. But my daughter’s Type 1 vibes seem to resonate exceptionally well with those of her Dexcom. I often think that my daughter and her Dexcom are as one.
6 Stay well hydrated. I believe this helps produce enough interstitial fluid that more accurately reflects BG levels.
7 Learn to accept the fact that the lag time after treating a low BG is going to be longer than you’d like. Keep this in mind so as to avoid overtreating lows.
Good luck! In short order, you will wonder how you lived without this miracle of diabetes technology.
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Don’t flip out when you see the numbers. Every day is a learning experience and you will learn when to react and when to let it ride. It’s a tool to,help you learn about your diabetes not anyone else’s diabetes. So set the range to what you think you need and as you get better, you might be able to tighten things up.
Also learn about alarms, so they are not going off all the time. It’s under alerts and than the advance tab. Enjoy your new tool. I think it is the best thing out there. For me it is blood testing meters, CGMs and insulin pumps in that order. Best tools out there!
Respond to low alerts quickly, but the first thing you should do is test. Make sure your hands are clean when you do so.
"♫ Just a small spot of sugar makes your reading go not down
will turn your head around… put your mood in the ground
Just a small spot of sugar makes your reading go not down
…in a very frightening way…♫ "
Sorry about that…
When in doubt, test.
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I read that lots of people were putting their CGM on the “back of their arm”, so I tried that at first, only to regularly be awoken at night with false low-alerts. I sleep on my side, and the pressure on the sensor was causing incorrect readings. Now that I’ve moved it to the front of my arm, not only is it more accurate at night, but I’m not accidentally whacking it on doorways, and it’s much easier to see/reach when I need to retape.
I have noticed “disconnects” due to my sons CGM being covered up due to the way he was positioned. When this happens, me or his mother usually turn him over to the side that doesn’t have the CGM on it and it reconnects in short order. I wish the “remote” capabilities of these things were much better than they are, honestly.
I’m also new to using the G5, I’ve just gone through my first week. I’m still really struggling with the whole concept of what I should trust more, my Blood glucose meter or the dexcom. It is interesting to hear you say you would actually trust the G5 more than you would your daughters meter. Admittedly, the vast majority of the time they seem to be very close. Maybe 0.1 to 0.4 mmol/ml difference so it isn’t a problem. But sometimes that difference could actually be the difference between treating a low and just watching what happens.
For instance sometimes I might see my dexcom moving down to 3.3 mmol/ml but on testing my Bg via my meter it shows 4.1, which I wouldn’t treat. I suppose I could wait and watch but it’s hard to see the dexcom show a reading I would treat and just watch it. I guess it’s a learning curve to see what works for each person.
You will learn to trust the Dexcom by testing. Experience will teach you when your CGM will not be as accurate.
I had a disadvantage when I started using the Dex. I HAD been using the Medtronic CGM in my pump. It was not very accurate for me and I would often ignore it. Once I started using the Dexcom, I had to “retrain” myself to respond to the CGM.
ON the arm, not the back of the arm. This is my left arm. The sensor and transmitter are about two inches inside (toward my body) so that I don’t sleep on the sensor. I have seen a few people who CAN put it on the back of their arm. I’m not one of them.
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I agree with everything except for point e), which does not work for me due to hair and/or sweat when exercising. You can also re-apply skin tac under parts of the patch which lose contact with the skin. It’s literally like gluing it back on.
Tim, from all I’ve heard, you’re not supposed to cover the actual sensor/transmitter. I could be wrong though! I have a cardboard template that I use to cut out the exact shape to fit the tape around the sensor/transmitter w/o getting the actual parts covered.
I have not had one problem covering over the whole thing. Ever. Despite the fact they say that the sensor can handle water–it doesn’t handle it very well.
Is that tegaderm tape you’re using? Is it a specific type, as far as I understand tegarderm is a brand. I’ve beeen struggling to find a tape that is actually any better than the dexcom adhesive.
The last tape I used peeled just as much as the Dex 
Opsite Flexfix. Keeps that bad boy on there for 14-21 days.
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