If so, he might consider if he has a bunch of other Bluetooth devices that might be causing interference. Is someone running a wireless phone or microwave when comm drops? Are you in a house with plaster walls with metal grating inside that is in between you and your device? I think DrBB used to have issues with his Dex because he might have been living in a giant apartment building and there was a lot of interference.
One obvious thing is to make sure you aren’t laying on your couch (laying on the sensor) when you see this rapid decrease in BG - it looks a lot like a compression low that ends in signal cutting out.
Is he walking out of range of his RileyLink? I don’t think that should break it because Dex sensor → Dexcom App on phone directly, right? No middleman needed re: the RileyLink for communications (RileyLink passes pump comm into the app). It could also be a bad connection inside of the RileyLink that breaks Loop sometimes. That happened once and it took a long time to figure out. I sent it to a guy in town who took it apart and found a bad connection.
Are you running comm off local bluetooth or your home internet connection? If I was not running on BT, every time there was a thunderstorm and my internet went down, loop failed. Since it’s spring, I gotta ask if its raining when this happens and if the water is tearing up your internet. That problem originally stemmed from a configuration issue. I would think that’s been fixed by now.
I wouldn’t totally disregard the idea that the sensors themselves are faulty. Maybe the shipment got damaged during transport.
MY ULTIMATE VERDICT of what I think is happening is this - Dexcom sensors are F-ing up. They know they are F-ing up and are shutting themselves down - that’s what the 3 hour restart would indicate to me. I’m thinking this is hardware failure. The sensors are detecting their own error. Those types of problems sometimes stick to the entire shipment (independent of Lot #) - at least there have been many rumors of this. Are you a new Dex user? Your insertion might not be fantastic.
Oh, your not using APS…yet
Lol. In general, people are uncomfortable with APS systems. There are a variety of ‘trust issues.’ See Dee’s recent post here: Turned automode off
If you want to talk to someone in addition to Terry who does feel really comfortable with APS, I will refer you to @BradP
I agree. I’ve had shortened sensor life with different lot numbers and different expiration dates. It’s pretty rare for me to get 10 days per sensor lately. I suspect that they made a business decision to skinny up on the manufacturing and they look at these early sensor failures as a cost of doing business. They seem happy to send free replacements for sensors that die early.
In the big picture, (for us not using Loop or APS) a sensor that dies early is an inconvenience but not that big a deal, because replacements are freely provided by Dexcom. It ticks me off every time it happens, but when they send a replacement all is well again.
I rarely have a sensor that works for 10 days. Yesterday, without warning, both my sensor and transmitter failed. The transmitter wasn’t even a month old, and both had been working perfectly up until that point.
Dexcom is of course replacing both.
I had been sold on the idea of pumping APS or not before I began MDI. I still think they are really good for some but will continue MDI at least for a while. I was mostly wondering and am glad to learn that CGM linked pumps have default overrides.
The looped pumps have basal settings. The sensor only makes small adjustments to it. My average basal rate is 1 unit per hour.
My pump will change it to .9 or 1.1 etc.
if it gets way out of range it will deliver a bolus. But it won’t deliver any bolus if the sensor is not working.
So the sensor looping is just an enhancement to the old fashioned pump. I really like mine though. It has flattened my nights very well.
As for the sensors, I just had one fail. It’s pretty rare for me. Maybe one in 10. I get a 3 month supply, so it’s easy to put on another while a replacement is sent. Unless the last one fails I guess.
@irrational_John, Yep APS = Artificial Pancreas System. @John58, I have also long suspected some changes in manufacturing process. I also consider that there might be some temperature/humidity problems during storage or transport.
@Luis3, I think its perfectly fine for you to try out APS IF you have a lot of faith/comfort level/experience with how your hardware fails. That’s important because you may bump into problems with the software built atop the hardware and those problems will be new to you and will take some troubleshooting. It will help you differentiate between hardware and software failures if you have a really solid understanding of your hardware walking into it. Otherwise there’s a some risk that problems compound and the system spirals out of control.
Have an idea of under what circumstances you want to pull the plug on the automated system like @Dee_Meloche did. Its better to shut down the automated functionality than it is to allow the system to spiral out of control. Sometimes people get really hooked on trying to make the system operate correctly and things go downhill fast because they don’t figure something out quickly enough. I’ve done that myself. Things got pretty dangerous surprisingly fast.
You are currently on MDI, so there is going to be some learning associated with starting a pump. You are currently using a sensor and that’s great. It is my recommendation that you build up some pump experience before moving to APS.
What would you all recommend for him if he wanted to try out an APS?
I’m kinda feeling t:slim, but then he would have to change to a new sensor, so that’s not ideal. He would need to play with entirely new hardware, but at least I think of that hardware as reliable.
One tough problem for you, specifically, will be getting the APS to operate optimally with exercise. It will help to develop a really good understanding of how your BG behaves under exercise circumstance. It will be easier if you are the type that sees fairly predictable behavior with exercise. I think your a X-country guy. I, personally, see more predictable behavior during X-country than with downhill (which is more anaerobic). It was simply never in the cards for me to operate APS while skiing downhill, for instance. You just want to have an idea of where those limits exist.
I think of the milestones that lead up to APS as looking something like this because this is the safest route that helps you be successful when you run APS.
I too use Dexcom G6 and I notice around day 7 or so it starts to give false readings. Never really fails, but becomes inacurate. Sometimes it just outright fails. Haven’t kept track of how many, but Dexcom never questions and always sends replacements that don’t last. You can even do it online now so you don’t have to call.
But when it is accurate, it is totally awesome! I love my Dexcom G6 and can’t wait for the 7, but won’t use it until they can get it working with Loop, though, because even if 7 is better, I want it to talk to my pump and all be done on my phone. I’m spoiled with Loop! One device. Not two or 3 . They talk to each other. And no tethering / tubes!
@BradP I really love it. I just had my lab tests this morning. I can’t wait to see what my HbA1c is. According to Dexcom for 90 days Avg BG 111 and for the last month 106. The reason for going MDI was an unexpected spike of HbA1c of nearly 1%. Each week I am seeing improvements, Time in Range, Coefficient of Variability and Standard Deviation. Now if I can just figure out how to have those wonderful sleep time numbers without the dip at 2 or 3 o’clock to below 70. I don’t get an alarm any more.
