hey everyone! I’m new to the Dex, but ‘old’ to diabetes. i’ve had type 1 for 16 or 17 years and am on the OmniPod. i finally jumped on the sensor bandwagon after dragging my feet for 2 or 3 years. so far, so good. it’s very addicting watching my blood sugars all day. i have a question though… i know the Dex and my OmniPod meter won’t always match but should be in range with each other by about 10-15 mg/dl. i’ve been wearing my Dex for 6 days (tomorrow is day 7…technically change day, but we’ll see). i still check my blood sugars often, probably about 6 times a day, if not more…and sometimes the reading on my meter is totally off from what Dex says. is this normal? for the most part the sensor and my meter are in range about 95% of the time, i’ve even had a couple instances of exactly the same test results. i haven’t gone to any ‘in person’ training, but i will be going to my pump support group tomorrow night and i think everyone but 2 people use the DexCom, so i can pick their brains too.
Hi Libby, I got my Dexcom in November and have found the sensor to be pretty accurate. The only time it is really "off" is if my blood sugar is rapidly changing which you can see with the arrows or if I am recovering from a low. Then the Dexcom will stay at 65 long after I have returned to normal. But once I enter my blood sugar the dexcom will almost immediately come up as well. Last Friday there was a presentation on TuD about CGM's it is available to watch if you look unter the media heading - videos. It was fairly informative and explained some of the finer points of CGM. Basically since the sensor is measuring a different fluid than blood it is about 15 minutes behind your actual blood sugar reading. If you are steady then they will match fairly closely, but if your readings are moving at all, the sensor will not be as accurate.
Hi Libby. I feel like my story is very similar to yours- I have been a type 1 for about 20 years and I was checking my sugar about 10 times a day. I just started using the Dexcom and I find myself looking at it much more then I need to! I do think it can become an obsession! I too though have found accuracy issues. I find they most often occur when my sugar is either high or low- for instance the 55 low alarm goes off, but when I check it with my meter it’s 80. However it has eliminated a lot of my finger pricking and at the moment I’m trying to use it as a tool for tweaking my pumping because I’m new to that as well. So anyway, I do feel your pain! Good luck.
Clare, if you return here, I could not locate the video you mentioned. I searched for 'video cgm' and only got 2008, 2009 videos plus a '12 Medtronic one.
Could you give us the title or has anyone else found the video Clare seems to be talking about?
Sorry Nell, The presentation was by Dr. Francine Kaufman of Medtronic about the Use and Future Use of CGM. And while I did think the entire presentation was stilted in the Medtronic direction, it still gave a fairly decent overview of CGM technology. Go to the bar at the top of the page here, click on the tab "media" go to "all videos" and the first one listed is the one I am talking about.
Clare