Hey everyone, I just started my Dex a little over a week ago and I love it, I love everything about it. Even with all it’s quirks it’s already changed my life.
Okay, that said I am on my second sensor and we’ve been going rounds. My first sensor the readings seemed to jump around a bit for the first day or so and then level out, now 4 days into my second sensor it’s still doing the same thing. If you watch my trendline it’ll jump up and down, by 20-30 points sometimes. Case in point, last night the trendline was flat at about mid 80’s then no readings for 15 min, then it read 215 for 10 min, then no readings for about half an hour then back to flat in the mid 80’s for the rest of the night!
When I do my BG calibration it’s been off by as much as 150! and usually off by at least 40-50. I’ve seen some posts about “bad sensors” or “bad sites” but I’m wondering is this normal? Is this what it’s like to have a bad sensor? If so, what is the process with Dex to get it replaced as these things are expensive!
The process is to call them, explain what’s been happening. They may ask you to send your downloaded data (they haven’t asked me to but some have). Make sure you don’t let them know if it’s been on for more than 4 days! (they get picky about replacing things that are past their half life). Good luck.
I have been off high amounts too. Lately I haven’t had many problems. I think one of my initial problems was calibrating too often.
If you do an upload, the support people can see more information than you can. For example they can easily see what the sensor reading was and what the meter reading was when you did a calibration.
If you get a dreaded ???, it means that the sensor cannot figure out what your BG level is. You do not necessarily need to replace the sensor. There is a protocol to handle ??? that the support staff can walk you through.
I wouldn’t worry to much about it. The dexcom tends to do funny things when I sleep as well. It will lose signal if the side the sensor is on is away from the side of the bed the reciver is on. Or when I sleep on top of it. Or roll on it during the night it will give me some crazy readings. The thing to remeber with Dex is don’t always believe it and don’t worry if it seems off. It will never be perfect. Although I will say some of the time it will read almost exactly with a meter sometimes also. Yes it could be a bad sensor or a bad spot but it’s most likely the dexcom just doing what it does. I never believe mine during sleep because it’s always telling me something crazy. Good luck and the only real advice i can give you being new to dexcom is don’t over do it. When I first got it, I would check it constantly and always worry wbout it. You WILL drive yourself crazy. So be careful!!
Thanks for the help everyone, it seems to have worked itself out, I’m just new and antsy, I’ll bet you can remember that feeling. Good news is that I called Dex and I’m getting a new sensor out of the deal anyway!
I’m on my 2nd sensor as well, and trying to figure out what has changed. The first sensor was pretty accurate across the boards and I was VERY impressed. The second I put in about 24 hours ago and it started off pretty well, but by the time I went to sleep last night it started reading a bit high, then it just kept bottoming out repeatedly through the night. I’d wake up to the LOW alarm and finger stick to compare against the 50’s 60’s and 30’s (OMG) that it was showing and each of those times the finger stick read from 85-102. See the chart below:
I’m going to call Dexcom in a minute (had to stop here first!), but that kind of innacuracy–not to mention lots of lost sleep–is annoying. I’m not sure if I should just toss the sensor and put a new one in or what…
Hopefully it’ll sort itself out soon.
Chris
[edit] Just called Dexcom’s 24/7 tech support, but it is only business hours unless it is an “emergency.” Not sure what constitutes an emergency with a Dexcom, but I guess I’ll try them tomorrow.
Good Luck Chris, I wouldn’t toss the sensor just yet, If I were you and I were in your shoes I would turn the reciever off, and go back to your fingersticks until you can get Dex on the phone. I agree with you that those kind of discrepencies (sp?) are ridiculous. Anyway I wish you luck,
I’ve on my second sensor too: the first one was displaying results like a very minor version of what you show above. I 'phoned Dexcom, spent a lot of time talking to various people and eventually decided on my own that I’d put the first sensor into my abdominal muscles. The second is working out just fine.
I’m surprised you didn’t get Sensor Error #1 yesterday morning.
BTW, I believe if you do a double finger stick (enter BG’s twice in 5 minutes) the receiver will hard reset to the average of the two and probably immediately error out, but I haven’t tested this yet.
My son just started on the system also. He had a false low and many times where he was missing readings. They told him to remove that sensor and call back if it kept happening. He did that yesterday and they are replacing the whole thing for him. He was awakened twice during the night the night before with out of range, when it was within a couple of feet from him.
Doing a double finger stick won’t cause an error. We have done it many times, and sometimes it fixes the problem and other times it just keeps insisting that it is correct and gives only a slightly different number. I have heard that Dexcom sometimes tells people to enter readings every 15 minutes 3 times to straighten things out, but haven’t ever felt the need to do that.
Anyone having trouble should really call them. My son hadn’t realized that he skipped one calibration, but the Dex rep caught it and said that could be a problem. Someone posted recently that in order to get better numbers on the first day, you should try to calibrate it when you are at a low range and a high range, not being concerned that you are entering too many. That makes sense to me.
