Dexcom G7 – 5 Things That Don’t Work

don't get me wrong I do love my Dexcom t7 but let's be real here it's not all rainbows and butterflies the G7 also has some issues and I think it's just as important to talk about some of the downsides of our diabetes Tech um because well just pretending everything is perfect is kind of a weird way of putting our heads in the sand so let's talk about it let's talk about the five things that I think don't really work when it comes to the Dexcom t7 plus some of the things that I think we can do to well make the g7s suck a little less yeah I'm Crystal from diabetes strong and I've been a little tight one diabetes since 1997 and I've been wearing Dexcom cgms for quite a few years now I started out on the Dexcom T5 and then moved over now to the Dexcom t7 I've been using that since early 2023 and as I said upfront in this video I do love my Dexcom t7 so this is in no way a video meant to trash the Dexcom t7 but rather a discussion of some of the things that I think could be improved okay the most annoying and maybe most recognized issue with the deck company 7 is a frequent signal loss signal law simply means that your desk com CGM so the sensor that's on your body loses contact with your phone or your receiver so you're not getting any blood sugar readings which is really unfortunate because obviously getting blood sugar readings is the only real reason why we wear a CDM I've experienced sensor loss with the Dexcom t7 in situations where my previous Dexcom models were just fine so examples would be having a sensor on my left arm and my receiver or my phone on my right side having my phone in my purse or even in my back pocket so Dexcom does recognize as this as an issue and their Solutions is simply do not put your phone or receiver the other side of the body as your sensor well I think that's a little silly in my experience the signal usually comes back fairly quickly I've only had a handful of sensors where it was a persistent problem and usually that would be towards the end of the 10-day sense of Lifetime but regardless of why and when and how long signal loss is very frustrating I've seen a few theories float around online and why this is happening one being that people speculate that the Bluetooth connection isn't as strong as it was in previous models that sounds about right to me without me knowing the exact facts on that or being an engineer according to taxcom um signal loss can have a few different reasons and they also offer some solutions of course you could be in a situation where you're just too far away from your receiver um but that would also been an issue for previous models as all of them require you to be within 20 feet of your receiver so I guess that's an easy fix if you leave your phone at home don't do that then you'll get lost signal other things they also mentioned is that you need to have your Dexcom app open makes sense um it doesn't mean that your phone has to be open you need to be able to see the Dexcom app all the time but you can't close it down on your phone second they say don't use low power mode which was a little bit interesting to me because I didn't realize this so low power mode is when you put your phone and low power mode so it preserves battery apparently that doesn't really work with the Dexcom t7 and then I do appreciate that very low-tech solution to signal loss and that is simply to turn off your device and turn it back on very innovative [Music] yes signal loss can be super frustrating but I've also found that a good portion of my Dexcom t7 sensors are super bunkers inaccurate the first 24 hours so one good debate what is most frustrating signal loss or bunkers blood sugar readings but probably Bunker's blood sugar readings all ctms regardless of Brandon model could be expected to have some level of inaccuracy the first 24 hours as a sensor just to the body at this point I don't have a side-by-side comparison of Dexcom t7 numbers in Dexcom T6 numbers I am working on that though so remember to subscribe to my channel if you want to check out that content but it's more of a feel right now it feels like more of my Dexcom t7s are inaccurate than previous models so there's only really one way of knowing if your sensor is inaccurate and that's by doing a finger stick so that's what I do especially those first 24 hours so I do finger sticks I do spot checks and I also really try to be in tune with how I feel so if the Dexcom shows a weird high blood sugar well I don't just correct that I do a finger stick to see if it's actually that high same thing with lows and usually after those first 24 hours tend to become accurate enough that I start to trust it and I don't do finger sticks as often with previous Dexcom models you could insert the sensor 24 hours or more before you started it thereby letting the sensor adjust to the body making it more accurate for those first 24 hours um you can still do that with there to come to use seven however once inserted even if you haven't started in the app once inserted the lifetime of this sensor starts so for me that's not really worth it I don't have enough sensors that a wacky that I think it's worth losing 24 hours [Music] another frustrating thing about Dexcom t7 are the compression lows so compression low is a fake low blood sugar that you get when you put pressure on the sensor for example when you're sleeping my guess is that the real issue if you wear a Dexcom D7 on your arm which is what it's FDA approved for it's only FDA approved for wear on the arm I don't want to make a side note here and that is that it's CE marked and it's the same sensor but it has a CE Mark for work both on the arm as well as on the stomach so you can obviously do whatever you want with that information I'm not telling you to go off label but that's what the CE Mark says and I can tell you that I've been wearing my dexcomp D7 on my stomach most of the summer and for me it works really well there maybe even better than on the arm so how do you know if it's a fall slow blood sugar well it's usually fairly easy to see often if you look at your desktop graph you'll see your blood sugar sort of plotting along maybe in a flat line and then all of a sudden bam you'll get a low blood sugar reading like urgent low out of the blue kind of thing no downward slope no nothing just an urgent low that usually tells you that this is a compression low and it can be problematic so one thing is being woken up for some in the middle of the night with a urgent lower alarm that can be frustrating I'd rather sleep than getting false alarms but it can also be an issue if you don't check your graph and you don't recognize that it's a false low reading and you treat it with glucose which can lead to high blood sugars later [Music] another kind of weird issue that can potentially be real problematic is that choppy or even jumpy Dexcom graph I've come to conclude that the Dexcom t7 self-adjusts to blood sugars more frequently meaning that if it thinks it's inaccurate it'll make sort of a Here and Now adjustment which in theory sounds great we want more accurate sensors but unfortunately it can also lead to a bit more unpredictable readings and well wrong readings let me explain I'll sometimes see a sharp increase in blood sugars from these self-adjustments and I have to be really careful not to just blindly react to them as often the sensor will self-adjust and the blood sugar line will come down to where it was before that jump and since Dexcom t7 only updates every five minutes it can be worth waiting 10 minutes plus before reacting to abrupt blood sugar changes or of course I could just do a finger stick to check as for the historic blood sugar grafts being a little bit more choppy than in previous models I'm not sure it matters a whole lot might not be super aesthetically pleasing but it probably doesn't matter for historic data analysis [Music] the final thing that's kind of a bummer but probably done deliberately is that the Dexcom t7 cannot be restarted yes you get a 12-hour grace period which is awesome but if you're for example run out of sensors or you can't afford to buy a new one unfortunately you cannot restart the Dexcom t7 sensor as you could with the Dexcom D6 I get it from a business perspective they don't want you to use a sensor longer than it's actually proved for and there might also be some heightened risk of infection if you wear it longer than the 10 days but it's really a bummer because I know that this means that for some people as ctm a Dexcom CDM specifically is just going to be too expensive so what do you think do you have anything to add to my short list of things that don't work with dexcomp D7 or maybe you love it that's totally cool I actually plan on doing a video with five things that I love about my Dexcom G7 so regardless please leave me a comment down below let me know what you think about the device and if you like this video please give it a like below and subscribe to my channel remember turn on notifications that is that little bell that will be informed whenever I post new content thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Diabetes Strong

Views: 156,894

Keywords: diabetes, insulin dependent, t1d, type1diabetes, t2D, type2diabetes, Dexcom, Dexcom G7, CGM, Continuous Glucose Monitor, fingerstick replacement, diabetes tech, glucose monitor, blood sugar reader, type 2 diabetes, is Dexcom G7 worth the hype, is Dexcom G7 good, Is Dexcom G7 accurate, diabetes review, diabetes tech review

Id: 4R-4I09A1ME

Length: 10min 21sec (621 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 23 2023