I am Christel from Diabetes Strong and this is my Dexcom G6 CGM review in this video I'm
going to give you my opinion on the product the good and the bad the Dexcom G6 CGM was
FDA approved here in the U.S. in March of 2018 and I've been wearing it since summer of 2018
and I would say overall I'm pretty happy with it see today I'm wearing it here on my arm
let's start out by looking at the system so let me show you all the components of the
Dexcom G6 system so the first component is your sensors so when you order these they come with
a month supply so there are three sensors and inserters in here so let's just open it
see I've already used one of them it's the one on my arm but it comes with three
each of these are both the sensor as well as the inserter so that's one component the other thing
that you'll need is a transmitter looks like this this is an old transmitter of mine and each
transmitter's battery life is three months so when you order a six month supply you'd get two
okay so there's a little battery in here so you reuse this in three months and the
system will tell you once the battery is up next component that you have to buy is the receiver
just turn it on there you go you can see my Dexcom readings here it doesn't have to be pink that's
just a sleeve I'm not sure how easy it is to take off I've had this sleeve on from the beginning
okay you get the idea you can take the sleeve off you can see here you don't have to use
a receiver actually I don't I just turn this off I get all my readings directly on my phone
so when you're ready to get started with the system the first component again this is both the
sensor and the insert or applicator so you take it out of the packaging you place it on the skin
you clean your skin first you place it on the skin you simply push the button and what this does is
it inserts a small sensor underneath your skin so most people don't feel any pain with this inserter
it's it's yeah for me it's painless it inserts a sensor under the skin pulls out the needle so you
don't walk around with the needle underneath your skin all the time but that little sensor
then measures your blood sugars in the fluid underneath your skin that does mean given that
it's not measuring your blood sugars directly in your blood that there be times where the reading
if you do a finger stick versus the CGM won't always be the same nothing wrong with that it's
just worth something to think about so for example if your blood sugars are rising quickly the fluid
is a little behind so you might see a higher blood sugar when you do a finger stick I have a whole
video on how to know if your sensor's accurate or not I will link to that down in the comments below
or down in the description field and you can check that video out if you're interested but that
little sensor let me just show you I have an old so this is what it looks like so this is a tape
so the applicator leaves this tape on and then it leaves this little plastic shield and then you
just pluck in your transmitter but let's see if we can even see the sensor you see there it's like
barely there you see that it's hair thin that's what's left underneath your skin that also means
that for example my sensor here I can tap it it doesn't hurt it's not like having a splint
or anything like that each sensor is meant for a 10 day wear it's only FDA approved for abdominal
wear so I know I wear it on my arm but that's just what I prefer but on your stomach, that's what is
FDA approved for so after nine days when there's 24 hours left the system will alert you and you
also get like two-hour alerts I think there's also a six-hour alert so it's not like you'll
be surprised when the 10 days are up so after the 10 days you simply just peel off it's a bandage
basically like a bandage you peel that off you can use a glue remover if it really sticks to
your skin I do that I can leave a link to a video on how to remove it without any pain down in the
common fields so again 10 day wear then you peel it off some people do restart it where longer it's
only approved for 10-day wear you then get your reading so that means your blood sugar readings
sent directly to your phone to your receiver or you can also use a share functionality so that you
can see it on your apple watch or I have it on my Fitbit watch so there's a lot of different ways of
viewing your data you can also set the alarms so you can customize the alarms with the Dexcom G6
that means that you can there's one alarm that you'll always get that's a 55 milligrams per
deciliter that's an FDA mandate for urgent low blood sugars so you can't turn that alarm off
so but you can set other alarms so for example if you want to be warned already at 80 milligrams per
deciliter you can set an alarm for that you can also set high alerts you can set those
for 160 140 200 whatever you're comfortable with the really cool thing about the Dexcom G6 system
which is different from the other ones is that you can have special alerts for night time for example
so I do that I have a different range for night time versus daytime and you can set all of that
directly in the app on your phone I also really like the reporting functionalities of this of
the Dexcom G6 so it goes through a system called Clarity so you can either go on your laptop or
you can download the Clarity app and you can see your readings for the last up to the last 90 days
and the reporting is really good it's really easy to see trends I really like the daily
report you can also add comments like okay I ate I exercised and this is the insulin I took all
of that you can add to the report so let's talk a little bit more about why I think the Dexcom
G6 CGM is worth the investment because let's be real here it is an investment it's a lot of money
but I think it's worth it because it allows me to be proactive in my diabetes management given the
alarms I can react before anything goes completely off the rails being that high a low blood sugars
also being able to look at my readings and see where my blood sugar has been where they're going
it gives a level of information that helps me not only be proactive now but also in the long run
and given that I can set their alarms to whatever level I need it to be
it means I rarely have low blood sugars anymore because the system will alert me
before I get to that point I also really appreciate the reporting functionality
so as I mentioned before I use Clarity for that and the Clarity app it really you know
whether or not I look at information from the last week the last month or last three
months it makes it easier to go in and pinpoint trends so that I can make changes to my care
comparing the Dexcom G6 CGM to earlier iterations of the Dexcom sensors
so I've used both the Dexcom G4 and I've used the G5 I would say that the G6 is a much better
product and there's a lot of different reasons for that first one being the insertion process
all the iterations you have this big needle you it was somewhat painful so I showed you the
this is in the packaging the inserter for the G6 so this is one that's used
just I wanted to show you so basically place it against the skin and you just push the
button and it's inserted pain-free it's super fast only downside is that this whole bad boy
is trash they do not have a recycling program you can take it apart I have a video on how to
do that but generally you know this just goes in trash it's a single use the other benefit is that
the Dexcom G6 is much smaller so I actually found so this is a six again that's the one I showed you
before so I found an old G5 of mine so you see them see how much larger see if I can hold them
up next to each other see how much larger the G5 is that's a G5 look at that so if we place
them on top of each other it's about the same footprint but the five is just much more clunky
I've also found that the G6 is more accurate it has less fluctuations for me the first 24 hours
can and that goes for any sensor I think the first 24 hours can be a little inaccurate but
that's about it the final benefit of the Dexcom G6 for me is the adjustable alerts I really like
that I can have a different profile for night time versus daytime and also just that I'm not
forced into having a range from let's say 120 to 180 I can adjust it so that it fits my needs
so yes I'm really happy with my Dexcom G6 but it definitely has some downsides as well so the
tagline is say no to finger sticks which annoys me a little bit because that's not accurate
especially the first 24 hours the sensors are often off you will you should confirm
with finger sticks in the outer ranges when it's very when your blood sugar is very high very low
you should also confirm with finger sticks because it can be inaccurate same thing there
are situations where you might be putting pressure on the sensor the compression
inaccuracies there might be situations where your blood sugars are rising or dropping very quickly
and as I mentioned up front at that time when that happens your blood sugars when you measure it
versus in the fluid underneath your skin is not going to be the same
so I personally always carry around a glucometer so a finger sticker just for those situations the
other issue that has come up is that unfortunately and I've seen this a lot in the diabetes community
some of the applicators are faulty what happens is that they insert the needle and then they get
stuck I've had that happen once simply what that means is that given that the sensor
everything's still in there the applicator is simply just stuck on the skin like this
of course that's not optimal I mean it didn't hurt the needle was still
stuck in me it didn't hurt it was just it was really hard to get off and I'm glad I had help
some people have resolved this issue like knocking it with a wooden spoon
there's also a little like hole here where you can you can try and prod it off that
did not work for me I had to simply pull it all off and I was fairly bruised after
the other thing is that the glue so you know the bandage I showed you
so this is not sticky anymore because I've had it lying around for a while but this is glue
basically the glue can be really really tough on your skin some people see allergic reactions
that's obviously not good for me I don't have that I do have sensitive skin meaning that
I have to use glue removers to take off the sensor so that it doesn't like peel off the top of my
skin and my skin looks very irritated after for me still worth it. I'd say the other downside is we
talked about before it's an expensive product that unfortunately means for some people that they can't
afford it especially if they have to pay you know 100 out of pocket or the majority out of pocket
and then the final thing that I've heard a few people mention is the data overload because
you will be having access to your blood sugar data 24/7. For some people, that's too much I
would say that what you can always do is you can always turn off all your alarms but the urgent
low because you still want to be warned before going lower right just turn that off and don't focus on
it and then use it for again the lower alerts use it for looking for trends so when you look back
at your data you can still look for trends you can still make adjustments so those would be my top
pros and cons for the Dexcom G6 so do I think the Dexcom G6 CGM is worth the investment absolutely
for me at least it is so what it helped me with is it significantly reduced my amount of lows
it has allowed me to be more proactive in my diabetes management and then finally it
has allowed me to quickly be able to identify trends so that I can make meaningful changes
to my diabetes management that's it for me today thank you so much for watching