Second dexcom sensor of batch goes intermittent after 6 days

Diabetes Technology Glucose Monitoring
1

When I awoke today at 5:00 am wednesday, November 23, 2011, I happened to look at my dexcom receiver and saw the same intermittent action that the first sensor of this new batch showed 6 days ago.

I do not have my computer I use to download the sensor data as I am out of town.

While not optimal, the data I manually recorded showed the following:

a) between 1:00 and 2:00 am the display line dipped down very fast to about 135 (est) from about 150. As time progressed, the waveform shot back up to about 160 and stayed stable to about 3:00am.

b) between 3:00 am and 4:00 am , the display line shot down to about 100 and seemed to shoot up and down and near 4:00 am dipped down to under 100 - about 80 and then by 4:00 am shot back up
to 150 and stayed there and slowly raised as expected after 5:00 am when I woke up. By 6;00 am it was up to 159.

c) I did gently massage the trasmitter sensor platform by gently pressing on top of transmitter. The sensor seems working more stable.

d) I took two readings on my freestyle light meter which were 136 at 5:25 by its clock and :5:26 am was 139. My read was the average reading was 138 from free style and entered.

My guess is that this behaviour not seen on earlier sensors but a repeat of the behavior shown by the first sensor of this batch is similar. I have not had chance to try and remove transmitter in situ , evaluate and reclean
if necesary has not been done yet. If one ignores the dips , the line and progess would have been fine. The dips seem to reflect a behaviour that the human body by itself could not realistically cause.

Please advise progress on technical report as to details for use of silicon grease, possible interference with sensor electrical connections and best method to clean out sensor cavity and degrease sensor connections.

I reported the first failure on Friday November 19, 2011 by both email and phone call and never had Dexcom call me or offer any better information for reasons of failure. A replacement sensor was shipped upon my phone call to Dexcom and Thank you for that.

This matter continues to be extremely serious and I have yet to see any action response from Dexcom reflecting that seriousness.

2

I forgot to mention the sensor batch which is REF: 9500-03; LOT: 5023981 and date of 2012-05-17.

Wednesday night at midnight sensor reading suddenly dropped from 150 to 116 around midnight. Freestyle light readings were in the 150. Pressing on the sensor seemed to cause the readings to go back stable and remain that way until sensor stopped on thursday.

Thursday to day was time to replace /restart after 7 days. I note the following:

after stopping sensor and inspecting; I found the whole right side of the sensor attachement adhesive released.
I taped it down and tried to remove transmitter, inspect sensor platform in situ. That was not successful after the monkeying around ( I did not expect it to do so and after restarting, got Sensor error.
Inspecting the sensor platform also showed a grease substances in the well and under the sensor wire connection plate.
The sensor adhesive attachment material had no stickyness whatsoever and looked stained from melting grease of sensor platform that had drained onto it.

I carefully cleaned my arm and installed a new sensor. When I installed the sensor plate as per instructions, I notice that the sensor connection plate sits up at an angle until trasmitter seated. I found grease inside the platform and carefully wiped upremoved the grease in the well and the sensor plate - top and bottom.

I then carefully cleaned the back of the trasmitter and carefully installed on the sensor platform.

After 2 hours this sensor started up without incident.

3

Apparently this 64 year old with serious liver complications is not worthy of a response from Dexcom, a week has gone by since reporting the issues with a latest sensor shipments and intermittent conditions.

Apparently everybody's dexcom sensors are working great and getting proper service and response from Dexcom.

I must be the only odd ball out there not worthy of support.

That is a shame.