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    • 13 hours, 35 minutes ago
      Greg Felton likes your comment at
      If you have T1D, have you ever dated or married someone who also has T1D?
      I fell in love with an insulin-dependent Type 2 20 years ago. There’s something terribly romantic about taking Lantus together at the end of the day.
    • 14 hours, 7 minutes ago
      ConnieT1D62 likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      One time I was explaining that a new pump would be too expensive at the time because my deductible had just started over.. and she asked if I had insurance and I said yes….. then she said “then it should be free with insurance.” 🤦‍♀️ She may know a little about the challenges of living with diabetes, but she knows nothing about how insurance works or how costly T1D supplies are.
    • 14 hours, 25 minutes ago
      Steve Rumble likes your comment at
      If you have T1D, have you ever dated or married someone who also has T1D?
      I fell in love with an insulin-dependent Type 2 20 years ago. There’s something terribly romantic about taking Lantus together at the end of the day.
    • 14 hours, 56 minutes ago
      Lawrence S. likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      I am an RN. Been going to same doctor for about ten years. Took me six years to train him. I am very well read when it comes to my LADA. He trusts my judgement and gives me excellent parameters to make decisions. Recently had a bad case of Covid. Insulin needs changed dramatically. Getting back to normal but he made sure I had scripts to cover my ups and downs with insulin needs.
    • 14 hours, 57 minutes ago
      Lawrence S. likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      Mine acknowledges the struggles and challenges that go along with managing T1D in my daily life. She gives suggestions as to what may or may not help and has often asked me I how I handle situations so she can give suggestions to other T1D patient's.
    • 14 hours, 58 minutes ago
      Lawrence S. likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      None of my endocrinologists or NPs have had T1D but I always discuss my challenges and they are incredibly helpful. What I always find astonishing is they are constantly amazed at how well I’m doing even when i don’t think I’m doing that well because most of their patients have nowhere near the A1c’s I’m able to achieve. And just hovers in the 6’s!
    • 15 hours, 23 minutes ago
      Jubin Veera likes your comment at
      Have you developed lipohypertrophy due to repeated injections/infusions of insulin? Lipohypertrophy is a term to describe hardened lumps of body fat just under the skin that resulted from repeated insulin injections/infusion sites. If so, share how you’ve handled lipohypertrophy in the comments!
      The hard spots are fairly frequent with the pump infusion sets. Especially if I go past 3 days which I try to avoid! I don’t think I ever got one from injections. I try heat and massaging to treat them and they normally go away after a day or so. Once I had a large area that I had to treat with antibiotics.
    • 15 hours, 25 minutes ago
      Magnus Hiis likes your comment at
      Have you experienced any symptoms of physical sexual dysfunction as a result of having diabetes, or having diabetes-related complications?
      I’m 79. My last orgasm was springtime about 3 or 4 years ago. When I complained of ED, my PCP Rxd 3 to 5 (60-100 mg) sildenafil tablets by mouth about one hour prior to sexual activity. This alone hasn’t worked to bring me up to former sexual capacity that I had 10 years years ago. I’m still considering consulting finding a doctor who’ll prescribe a safe but effective way of administering testosterone or an anabolic steroid in a dose low enough to avoid causing cardiovascular problems but high enough to restore normal ability that I had up to my sixties. My present doctors say it can’t be done, but there are doctors who advertise otherwise. Analogs of the hormone insulin can be delivered in small safe doses, why not testosterone?
    • 1 day, 7 hours ago
      Becky Hertz likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      We are all so very different, and trying to say that all of us with T1 understand what it's like for another who has the same hill to climb is unproductive. Having a health care provider with T1 may often be helpful just because there's apt to be more knowledge about the specifics. How we respond to the disease is such a personal matter, that I really don't think there are any guaranteed benefits beyond the grasp of the factual. Finding a doc with the same general attitude about the disease does feel good, and sometimes that's all I hope for after working hard to make peace with the disease for 70 years. Asking my doc to "get it" used to be almost my mantra, but I've come to realize that the ones who don't just see us as unruly childrenchildren
    • 1 day, 7 hours ago
      Becky Hertz likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      Both my endocrinologist and my nurse practitioner are great. They compliment me on the way I take care of my life and health and make aure I get all the supplies I need managing all the paperwork Medicare and insurance requires. My nurse practitioner who works with me on managing the pump has her own opinion about the pump settings based on her technical knowledge which is different than what I do with my settings based on living with them. She has thru the years learned to respect what I do and is surprised with how my settings work. So we are now at peace. Both very supportive.
    • 1 day, 10 hours ago
      pru barry likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      Yes. However, for those of you who assert, "It takes one to know one," the same might be said of age. Geriatrics is a marvelous array of marvels.
    • 1 day, 10 hours ago
      mojoseje likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      I said yes but that refers to my nurse practitioner who sees me every other visit, if not more often. The doctor may know how hard I try but perhaps takes my efforts for granted.
    • 1 day, 12 hours ago
      Anneyun likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      How can someone without the disease really understand what it is to live with it? I have never had a doctor with T1D in 60 years.
    • 1 day, 13 hours ago
      Bruce Schnitzler likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      Yes. However, for those of you who assert, "It takes one to know one," the same might be said of age. Geriatrics is a marvelous array of marvels.
    • 1 day, 13 hours ago
      Kristine Warmecke likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      My endo is young, very empathetic, thorough, always asks for my input, and does research. I am blessed too. have him, and the one before for over 25 yrs.
    • 1 day, 13 hours ago
      Kristine Warmecke likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      Yes. However, for those of you who assert, "It takes one to know one," the same might be said of age. Geriatrics is a marvelous array of marvels.
    • 1 day, 13 hours ago
      lis be likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      None of my endocrinologists or NPs have had T1D but I always discuss my challenges and they are incredibly helpful. What I always find astonishing is they are constantly amazed at how well I’m doing even when i don’t think I’m doing that well because most of their patients have nowhere near the A1c’s I’m able to achieve. And just hovers in the 6’s!
    • 1 day, 14 hours ago
      Daniel Bestvater likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      My provider does not have T1. Only someone with it can truly understand the various daily challenges and worth it takes to manage this.
    • 1 day, 14 hours ago
      TEH likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      My provider does not have T1. Only someone with it can truly understand the various daily challenges and worth it takes to manage this.
    • 1 day, 15 hours ago
      Lawrence S. likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      I have no clue what my T1D health care provider understands about my daily challenges and I don’t know about his daily challenges either. Not sure why I should care as long as I have access to information how to best take care of myself.
    • 1 day, 15 hours ago
      Jeff Marvel likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      My provider does not have T1. Only someone with it can truly understand the various daily challenges and worth it takes to manage this.
    • 1 day, 15 hours ago
      Richard Wiener likes your comment at
      Do you feel that your T1D healthcare provider understands the daily challenges and work that goes into living with T1D?
      My provider does not have T1. Only someone with it can truly understand the various daily challenges and worth it takes to manage this.
    • 2 days, 6 hours ago
      sweetcharlie likes your comment at
      Have you developed lipohypertrophy due to repeated injections/infusions of insulin? Lipohypertrophy is a term to describe hardened lumps of body fat just under the skin that resulted from repeated insulin injections/infusion sites. If so, share how you’ve handled lipohypertrophy in the comments!
      Hi Connie, I still have my glass syringe and show it off occasionally. We boiled the needle and syringe every morning and sharpened the needle with a file. I was diagnosed at age 6 in 1963. Life is so different now! Then, my diet was extremely limited as was my exercise. Now, I am very active and eat pretty much as I please. I maintain an A1C in the low 6s (6.2 was my last).
    • 2 days, 6 hours ago
      sweetcharlie likes your comment at
      Have you developed lipohypertrophy due to repeated injections/infusions of insulin? Lipohypertrophy is a term to describe hardened lumps of body fat just under the skin that resulted from repeated insulin injections/infusion sites. If so, share how you’ve handled lipohypertrophy in the comments!
      Connie and Beth, I was diagnosed in Nov 1962, age 10. During the early years I developed lumps and indentations on my upper thighs from my injections. In fact, I was able t o spot other t1 kids in my junior high school based upon the lumps in their upper arms.. (I eventually met up with them and learned that I was correct.) By the time I reached my twenties, these indentations had more or less disappeared, but I still have remnants of the lumps. I wish I could say that the layers of tissue now deposited on my legs disguises them, but they don't. I think the changes in insulin have been responsible for this improvement: the isolation and purification of animal insulins were refined, and then the various human clones were game changers in many ways.
    • 2 days, 6 hours ago
      sweetcharlie likes your comment at
      Have you developed lipohypertrophy due to repeated injections/infusions of insulin? Lipohypertrophy is a term to describe hardened lumps of body fat just under the skin that resulted from repeated insulin injections/infusion sites. If so, share how you’ve handled lipohypertrophy in the comments!
      Yes in my upper arms when I was a petite and skinny child in the 1960s with T1D. In those days we used glass syringes with stainless steel 1/2 inch long heavy gauge needles. My mother would jab me in the upper arms, it hurt like the dickens, and I developed several hard nodules. I was diagnosed at age 8 in December 1962 and after the initial two months of her jabbing me in the upper arms, I took over giving my own "shots" and started self injecting via site rotation in my thighs for several years. Eventually the lipohypertrophy in my upper arms resolved and I never injected there again until many years later as an adult on MDI using disposable syringes with very short and fine gauge needle tips. Periodically I would give my tired pin cushion thighs a rest and take a break for a few months or a couple of years and rotate injections in my abdomen or upper arms. Have been using a pump for over 20 years now and rarely use MDI unless I am taking a pump break for a short period of time. Happily, I no longer have lumpy sites.
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    If you wear a CGM, what do you do when a sensor fails?

    Home > LC Polls > If you wear a CGM, what do you do when a sensor fails?
    Previous

    How long did T1D still feel new to you after your diagnosis?

    Next

    Have you ever used a digital health coaching app (ex: One Drop, mySugr, Livongo, etc.)? If so, share your experience in the comments!

    Sarah Howard

    Sarah Howard (nee Tackett) has dedicated her career to supporting the T1D community ever since she was diagnosed with T1D while in college in May 2013. Since then, she has worked for various diabetes organizations, focusing on research, advocacy, and community-building efforts for people with T1D and their loved ones. Sarah is currently the Senior Marketing Manager at T1D Exchange. Sarah and her husband live in NYC with their cat Gracie. In her spare time, she enjoys doing comedy, taking dance classes, visiting art museums, and exploring different neighborhoods in NYC.

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    25 Comments

    1. Bob Durstenfeld

      Dexcom is usually pretty good about replacements.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    2. Ahh Life

      Other. I call, but only after several have failed prematurely. I recently had 9 not meet their life expectancy. I suspect it was a bad batch. I called after several months. ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    3. Thomas Hatton

      Minimed sensors fail often. I had one earlier this week. The medtronic diabetes store has a replacement link on the main menu. They will only replace 3 over a 3 month span. Because they cost so much i don’t hesitate ordering replacements. That’s how I know about the limit. If the sensors were more reliable, they wouldn’t have this problem.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    4. joan Fray

      I save it. Then call Dexcom and they are good about replacing them. I’ve only had two fail in three years. They always want me to send the old one back to them.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    5. connie ker

      I was having trouble with the Abbott Freestyle Libre staying on my arms, until I started using the clear tape that is worn over the entire sensor. It keeps the sensor on for the entire 2 weeks and my supplier does not charge extra for the tape, I just have to ask for it. So live and learn, but do what works best for you.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    6. Clare Fishman

      I recently found out that I can just go to Dexcom tech support online at https://www.dexcom.com/support You can put in your sensor problems or “chat” with a support person online. I have not had a sensor fail in more than a year, but when it does I always request a replacement.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    7. Gene Maggard

      I’ve only had one Dexcom G6 sensor fail in almost three years, so didn’t follow up. When I was using Minimed sensors I had a lot of problems and had several replaced. My situation now is that under my Medicare Advantage plan I don’t pay anything for the Dexcoms so an occasional one failing isn’t a big deal for me.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    8. William Bennett

      Website, because Dexcom offers a chat option on their contact page that is 20X faster and more responsive than calling and sitting on hold for hours. It’s limited to business hours Pacific time, but that’s not a huge problem even for an East Coaster like me.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    9. Lorri McLuckie

      I’ve had several sensor failures and always call for a replacement. Yesterday I had a transmitter fail and also called for a replacement for that.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    10. Amanda Barras

      A failed sensor happens so rarely that I throw it and just start anew with out worrying. I usually extend my sensors and get a an extra 4-5 days of wear beyond its life expectancy. So, with that I gain more time than I lose when one does fail.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    11. Kristen Clifford

      I throw out the one that failed and put on a new one. End of story.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    12. Kris Sykes-David

      Funny you should ask! Just last night my transmitter for my G6 failed after 20 days. I called Dexcom and they acted quickly, as always when I have a problem. After the warmup on the new sensor/transmitter combo, my readings were LOW. That’s not what my finger stick told me! Well, since it was late, I gave it overnight to “cook” to see if there would be any change in numbers. (I actually turned off my receiver and Bluetooth on my phone, no way to sleep with that racket!) This morning it is up a bit higher but over 50+ points off. Time to call Dexcom again ……

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    13. Abigail Elias

      Not a common event but I call because they like defective products returned for quality control and troubleshooting.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    14. Angela Naccari

      I use the Tandem X2 pump and Dexcom G6. The last time I had a problem with the transmitter failing early (just a few weeks after used), Tandem replaced the transmitter and the sensor that was lost

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    15. Ceolmhor

      My answer isn’t as simple as the choices you provide. My Medtronic sensors are supposed to last a week. If the failure occurs in the last 2-3 days, I just throw it away. If it fails early, and my supply is low, I call for a replacement. If it fails early, and my supply is more than I need (that’s most of the time), I still call to see if they want the failed sensor returned for investigation. They request that less frequently these days, but sometimes it helps them discover the causes of their failures.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    16. Megan L

      Mine rarely fails, but when it does, I just get a replacement from the website (Medtronic). Much faster (and not having to deal with a frustrated representative), in my opinion.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    17. Elizabeth Thompson

      Medtronic always replace them but I didn’t know you could get a replacement sensor from the website. I thought you had to speak to a representative and answer all the questions etc! Takes a while for sure. Someone commented on getting more time from your sensor. How do you do that? Mine tells me to replace it after 7 days and the transmitter no longer receives readings. Thanks.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    18. KarenM6

      Mine fail about 55% of the time (and I have an Excel spreadsheet to prove it.) ;p One of the only times I’ve geeked out on data! ;p So, if a sensor fails on the 8th or 9th day, I just let it go. But, if it fails between 1 and 7 days, I _generally_ call for a replacement (especially if I’m low on sensors). Dexcom has always been fantastic with the customer service on this issue. I appreciate that about them so much. (I’m very excited to see what their G7 will be like!)

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    19. Ann Taylor

      I very rarely have trouble – the last time I had a problem it was my transmitter that died Does anyone else have an issue with the Dexcom 6 being way off from the finger sticks? In the morning it can be right on or very close and by lunch it can be 30 or more off

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    20. Cheryl Seibert

      Dexcom’s Live Chat feature on their support website is the easiest way to obtain a replacement. Plus everything discussed is documented. The tech support folks are extremely helpful and kind.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    21. Derek West

      This is for Elizabeth who questioned how to get her Medtronic sensor to last more than 7 days. I leave mime inserted but disconnect the transmitter and re-charge it. I then tell the pump it is a new sensor and it happily goes through the warm up procedure. To be able to remove the transmitter I use surgical tape to hold it in lace the first week, which comes off relatively easily. I only use the sensor for 2 weeks.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    22. Sasha Wooldridge

      I had no idea they would replace them now! I started with a Dexcom WAY back at the beginning for me, so 10 years ago or so. I argued so much with everyone about getting them replaced that I gave up and that’s when I started reusing them to create a stockpile just in case. I never revisited the issue in all this time. Good to know this is an option now!

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    23. Molly Jones

      I chose other as my main goal was to call the company and report issues with the sensor, so cause could be found and prevented. I always receive a replacement, which is nice. I am curious if I have issues with my sensors about a quarter of the time due to quick fluctuations in BG. It can be difficult to find the right time to start a session when my BG will be stable.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    24. Bonnie Lundblom

      I’m on Medicare now and switched to the Dexcom CGM 6 in September. I’ve had multiple sensors fail since then and one transmitter that only lasted 4 weeks. When I call Dexcom tech support I’ve been told if the readings are off significantly from finger sticks and calibration doesn’t rectify this I’m to remove the sensor, apply a new one, and call for a replacement.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply
    25. Elizabeth Thompson

      Thanks, Derek! Appreciate you taking the time to explain.

      2 years ago Log in to Reply

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