Dexcom Problems

[Mouchakkaa]

We are new to this forum and also new to dexcom. Not new to cgms. We had the guardian last year for about six months until my daughter said no way. We like how easy the dexcom is to insert and how well it stays on her body without extra taping. We have however been having a lot of troubles with the readings at night time after she goes to bed. The sensor she is wearing has been on since Wednesday. It was working very well up until Friday night. When I went to bed I checked her blood sugar and compared the results to the dexcom. They were pretty close together and she was sitting nicely in the low 100's. About 30 minutes later I heard an alarm and went to investigate. The dexcom had a high alarm (above 180) and when I cleared the alarm it said she was in the lower 200's (could not remeber the exact number). Before giving her a correction I did a finger stick. It said she was 85. I did another finger stick and it said 85. So I decided to calibrate the dexcom. I checked to make sure the calibration took after fifteen minutes. It had just ???. I waited a bit longer and then it asked for another calibration. Which I did. We did this a few times (??? recalibrate) and then decided not to calibrate the machine until morning. I had troubles like this on the first site and ended up taking off the site early. This site was working well and was stuck to her body nicely so I did not want to take it off. In the morning I recalibrated the dexcom and after fifteen minutes it started showing blood sugar results (although the results were 60 points lower then what I calibrated the machine at even though I know it was a stable blood sugar). Throughout Saturday the dexcom numbers came a little closer to her actual blood sugar results but were not as accurate as Thursday and Friday numbers. Then the same thing happen last night. My daughter went to bed with a blood sugar reading of 103 and the dexcom said130. After 30 minutes I get the high reading again from dexcom in the upper 200's. I decided not to calibrate but to restart the sensor. After two hours it asked for a calibration. Her finger sticks were 100 and 95. After fifteen minutes I get a low alarm of 40's. I checked the blood sugars and she was still sitting at 105. This low alarm went on all night. I would check her blood sugars a few times throughout the night and they were between 85 and 105, with dexcom always saying they were in the lower 40's. I did not want to treat the 100 blood sugars because I know she will be stable all night, but every few minutes I had to deal with the low alarms. I contacted dexcom tech support and they said I did nothing wrong and that sometimes the sensors do this. She also mentioned they were having problems with the sensors on younger children (something about noise at night) and they were working on fixing this problems. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do. When the dexcom works, it works great. When it doesn't it is a lot of work to get it working and I'm losing a lot of sleep. I want to keep trying. I have read the other threads on here about the dexcom and everyone seems to like it. What can I do to get this thing working for us.

[ecs1516]

Hey Tracy,
You know I have the Navigator but there are many people that use Dexcom on this website that can help you. Hope you get your problems fixed soon. We are loving this CGM. Is your insurance paying for the CGM this time?

Where is your daughter wearing the CGM?

When you get the low alarm at night is your daughter laying on the sensor? Just one of my boys have this problem. His blood sugar may really be 140 but, if he is laying on it the reading on the CGM may dip to 90. I hear the low alarm and double check with the meter and roll him off the sensor. Within a couple of minutes the up arrow is showing and the reading starts going back to normal. Eric has been wearing it everyday since 8/11 and Ethan 9/08. Ethan has never had this problem??? So strange.

[Jacob'sDad]

I'm going to bump this. It would be nice if it got a few responses.:cwds:

We are more than likely going to get the Dexcom so possible issues with it interest me. The fact that it acts up mostly at night would cause me to investigate anything that might be different from night to day. I would expect the BEST results at night due to the lack of movement. The receiver is receiving so the problem must be at the sensor end. If all the problem sensors are from the same lot I would want them all replaced. I would want the transmitters replaced too. I suppose the receiver could somehow be interpreting the info it is getting from the transmitter incorrectly, due to some kind of strange interference in the area she is sleeping. If there are environmental factors that could cause interference I would think the folks at Dexcom would already know about it and would give you a list of things to look for.

I'd be tempted to ask for a whole new system. They could then look at everything you send back to try to isolate the problem. The results you are getting so far are completely unacceptable. Anything you buy has to work for the function it is designed to do. That is not happening, so Dexcom shouldn't give you any problems for anything you might want replaced.

[Wendy12571]

First of all you should NEVER calibrate the dexcom when you get the ???. This means the sensor can't give a reading due to noise, rapidly changing sugar or some other factor. If the issue is always at Bedtime most put the dexcom in a cup at the top of the bed.

[Darryl]

Hi - take a look at the post "CGMS Calibration" in my signature. If you're not doing these things when calibrating, it might help.

[ecs1516]

Is this your first sensor or have the other sensors in the box been working okay?

[Mouchakkaa]

Thanks for everyone's response. Yes, our insurance is paying for the sensors at 80%, which is nice. They said we will have to pay $55 out of pockect for four sensors.

My daughter is wearning the sensor on her stomach and she does not sleep on her stomach, but she does move from side to side all night.

The ??? comes about 5 min after I calibrate. I know not to calibrate during the ??? so I wait until they go away again and try to re-calibrate when prompted. This has gone on all night at two different times with two different sensors. One time with the first sensor which I took off on day 5 instead of day 7 and one time on the current sensor which I refuse to take off after just 3 days. The next night when this happen again I decided to re-start the sensor.

I believe I am calibrating correctly. I did read the thread on all the things to take into consideration when calibrating (however the dexcom representatives have stated you do not need stable blood sugars to calibrate the dexcom. I do not believe this and have always calibrate only when her blood sugars are stable and when they are between 70 and 150). The nice thing about the dexcom is that you do not have to calibrate exactly at the 12th hour, you will continue to get readings after the calibration symbol appears and if it is not a good time to calibrate, don't. This has happen a few times and I calibrated as soon as it was possible to put in a good calibration.

I do have to say that last night, with the same sensor as this post, we had great readings again (When this thing works, it works). It alarmed to say she went below 80 just after I went to bed and a finger stick confirmed a 78. I backed off of her insulin for 2hrs and checked on the dexcom at 3:00. She was sitting at the 100's for the last three hours. The alarm then went off again this morning at 6:00 and once again she was starting to go below 80 with a finger stick confirming at 73. So for now this sensor is back working again.

[khoward1017]

We are having the same problems with my 6 year old son's Dexcom 7. Last week we decided to take a vacation from using it. After we get the ??? it never seems to read right again. We usually end of changing the sensor after battlng it for a day or so. My son is a very active 6 year old so we assumed that maybe he was being rough and pulling out the sensor...but evertime we change it it still looks great.

But again.....when it works, we LOVE IT!!

[ecs1516]

Sounds like you are doing everything right, Maybe bad box of sensors?
I like that on the Navigator we can delay calibrations like the dexcom. I've delayed it all night before.

[ecs1516]

I wanted to bump this up. Are you still having problems?

[Mama Belle]

Sounds like you are doing everything right, Maybe bad box of sensors?
I like that on the Navigator we can delay calibrations like the dexcom. I've delayed it all night before.

How do you delay a cal on the Navigator? I guess I should go read my user's manual more carefully, huh?

[Mouchakkaa]

I had to pull the sensor out yesterday when she got home from school. It was reading and alarming at school that her blood sugars were below the 55 mark all day. Her blood sugars were actually in the low 100 every time the nurse did a check. When I tried to put a new sensor on she refused to let me. I'm not sure why she does not want it on, I know it does not hurt her to place the sensors. I am going to try again after school today. We have two more snesors to use and I want to try them to see if my technique of placing the sensors get better and therefore we get better results. If these two sensor do not work I'm not going to order any new sensors. We did not pay for the dexcom, the company did a trade with our guardian and gave us the dexcom in exchange. If my daughter does not like it and we can not get better results then I'm not going to force the issue after we use the two sensors that we have. If anyone has any more suggestions to help us get better results I would really appreciate it. I know it takes longer then a month to fine tune our machine and learn all the different tricks needed to get the device working properly (or aleast with not so much frustration). But I can not force it on my daughter unless it is something I can't live without.

[ecs1516]

I can understand your daughter's feelings. My younger son would have been the same way. We put his older brother on the CGM first. He saw what was involved with wearing it extra and said he would wear it if it 'works' for him. If it alarmed all day for no reason he would throw in the towel. It sounds like you only bought one box? I hope it wasn't a 'bad' box. We have used 4 boxes so far and one box required extra calibrations(more than the four) and the last sensor did not even work? The next to last quit after the second calibration. Abbott sent replacements and they have been fine.
You were not hitting muscle were you? I think the dexcom's sensor is 13mm , right? I read on somebody's post they had to tilt the inserter so it does not go so deep.


Heidi,
Look on page 42
2nd calibration must be performed between 2 and 4 hours after 1st, 3rd calibration must be performed between 12 and 20 hours after 2nd. 4th calibration must be performed between 48 and 56 hours after the third. Calibration will stop ifyou miss the window but will resume once you calibrate.

[Mouchakkaa]

I got the sensor put on my daughter and we just calibrated the machine. After we started to get readings I did another blood sugar to see if the dexcom was reading properly. It was. Keep your fingers cross that we can get this one working properly for at least seven days.

[vettechmomof2]

Some things. With the Dexcom at night with children the "noise" can be from a baby monitor or other items like that. Yes, sometimes we get it as well.

We also found that in bed can sometimes be the hardest time for readings as the body's fluid is moivng at the slowest rate so it can have trouble reading.
We rarely ever have trouble anymore though. Basically in bed my daughter chooses to sleep on it or attach it directly to her clothes near her sensor.

As for alarming that she is super low when not there. We have found the trending for a low can get "stuck" in that range basically. BUT only on the days that she has had a low. If it happens often then recalibrating has AWALYS worked for us. SO not sure there.

Our insurance denied us so we have paid and continue to pay out of pocket for all of it but would give up an extra car for it if we really have to. We love it that much.
Hopefully after sometime things will settle in for you.
Good luck,
Allene

[sweetpea]

We used the dexcom for 6 months last year. Between about 2 and 6 AM we would get numerous low alerts when she wasn't really low. She would be stable in the 90's and I would try numerous times to calibrate it to stop the low alert but it never stopped the alarms. I actually checked her blood sugar more on the dexcom than without. One day I checked 24 times. When I counted that up I realized it was time to quit.

We've had the Navigator for a month. It seems to work better for us.

[ecs1516]

Mouchakkaa,

Hey

How is your daughter doing on this sensor so far?

Carol