I am Christel from Diabetes Strong in this
video I’ll be talking about what I absolutely hate about my Dexcom G6
so that might sound mighty negative compared to the content, I usually create
but hear me out
so there are definitely some things that drives me absolutely bonkers
when it comes to my Dexcom CGM however that does not mean that
I want to be without my Dexcom I still think that the upsides
outweigh the downsides but for me to say that I loved everything about
my Dexcom CGM would also be a total lie
I started wearing Dexcom about five or six years ago
and I haven't stopped wearing it or switched to a different CGM
so that just tell you a little bit about my commitment to this product
but I’m all for transparency,
so let me walk you through the 7 things that I absolutely hate about my Dexcom
It only makes sense to really wear a CGM if it's accurate and unfortunately
it's not accurate 100% of the time one thing is faulty sensors I get that
it's annoying but I understand that sometimes products just don't work
you know I think we all bought some sort of electronics at one point
and we took it out of the box didn't work we returned it fine
but what really grinds my gears
is that the CGMs and it's not just Dexcom it's all the CGMs
can be significantly inaccurate especially for the first 24 hours of the sensor
I mean Dexcom even have it on their
product description so this is what it says
directly on Dexcom's website let me read it to you
“with newly inserted sensors the difference between your meter value
and the G6 readings might be greater,
generally the match gets closer over the first 24 hours”
so to be fair all the CGM manufacturers say the same thing
however I’m paying for a 10-day sensor
I should be getting 10 days of good accurate readings
so there's the first 24 hours I’ve also had sensors that just
randomly started to get inaccurate mid sensor and towards the end
of the sensor's lifetime so Dexcom does have guidance on when is a
sensor inaccurate, when should you calibrate
I actually did a whole video on that I will leave a link to that up here
so you can check that out
so the inaccuracy kind of leads into my second annoyance with the
Dexcom product and that is the false marketing
so Dexcom proudly says on in all their advertising
is no more finger sticks and that's just plain misleading
I am doing less finger sticks than before I got my CGM for sure
but no finger sticks that's just not reality
generally you should not use your Dexcom for
dosing decisions for the first 24 hours of the sensor given the inaccuracy we
just talked about before so you should be doing
finger sticks and basing your decisions on that
further you should do finger sticks if your blood
sugars are very high or very low or your symptoms do not match
what your Dexcom is telling you
so to quote Dexcom's small print
“finger sticks required for diabetes treatment decisions if
symptoms or expectations do not match your readings”
the next thing that I really hate is all the transmitter and sensor failures
so I’m going through a good streak right now
I haven't had any sensors or transmitters
bail on me for a while so fingers crossed that this will continue
but I’ve had a ton of sensors a ton of transmitters fail on me
it seemed like there was a few months last summer where they would just
fail all the time and of course it always happens at the most inconvenient times
but I must say Dexcom is really good at replacing faulty transmitters or sensors
so the trick at least here in the U.S is simply that you open up your Dexcom app
you go down the bottom you click settings then you click contact
and there will be an online form that pops up
you just fill that out and they'll send you a replacement sensor transmitter
but let me just show you how to do that
open up the Dexcom app down here click settings
then you click contact and here you click report an issue
and then it opens up to a separate page and here you fill out all your information
the date of when did this occur what is the issue so there's a drop down menu here
so once you've found what you're looking for you'll just select that
and then the product information what is it that's wrong
it's a sensor receiver transmitter
some of the information is not mandatory so you just fill out everything you can
and then once you're done with all of that you simply click submit
and then there's the amount of non-recyclable waste it's mind-blowing
this is 12 sensor inserters, applicators, so this is 4 months of use
and these you cannot recycle so each of these there's a needle in there
because that's how the sensor is getting inserted
so each of these is technically considered a sharp container
so at least here where I live in California these should not go in the trash
these need to be, you know, handed off to someone who can handle sharps
if you're in similar situations and you don't know what to do with your sharps
try visiting safeneedledisposal.org and they can guide you to where here in
the U.S you can dispose of your sharps that's what I use and it's super easy
then we have the alarm functionality of the Dexcom G6 which is brilliant
I do want to be woken up if I have a low blood sugar
but I kind of also want to sleep, so there's that,
you can adjust alarms on the Dexcom G6 system
you can actually take off all the alarms but the 55 mg/dl,
which is the urgent low blood sugar, you can't take off that alarm
so as I said I do want to be woken up if I am having a low
blood sugar especially if I can be
you know alerted before it actually gets really low
however I do not want to be woken up if my blood sugar is not actually low
and especially those first 24 hours where the sensor is
for the most part inaccurate I usually get a lot
of false low alerts and it's incredibly annoying so for some of these nights
where the alarms just go off and off and off and off
and I know I actually don't have a low blood sugar, I know that I’m in range,
I know that because I do the finger sticks right
so I’ve had nights, I had one last night, where I end up turning off the phone
completely just to silence the alarm so that I can sleep
problem with that is that I also use my phone as my alarm clock, so yeah choices
and then there's a risk of the needle not retracting after you insert the sensor
so this has only happened to me 3 times
that is 3 times too many but it's something that I really hope
they've fixed, it hasn't happened in a while
so what happens is that, this is the inserter, so once placed on the skin
it's stuck on the skin because there's adhesive
you click the button and the needle quickly goes in and it leaves the sensor
underneath the skin when the needle does not retract into the device
the needle is stuck underneath the skin and because of the adhesive
the whole inserter is stuck on the skin
so good news is it happens three times with me, it did not hurt,
it looks dramatic but it did not hurt however given the adhesive and the
needle underneath the skin it makes it really hard to get this one off
there's a few different tricks that I’ve seen floating around the diabetes community
because this has happened to a lot of people
one of them was to hit the end with a wooden spoon
I did that, one of the times that did not work at all and I had to pry it off
There was a little bit of bleed eating but not too bad
but the two times it did work with the wooden spoon the needle then
retract it back and I could just you know dispose of the inserter
and then finally the last thing that I really hate about my Dexcom G6 it's the price
this is not a cheap device and you'll need, when you start out,
you'll need a receiver, even if you're never going to use it
you have to buy the receiver
you will need transmitters, so a transmitter lasts three months
and you'll need sensors so they'll sell your sensor packages with three sensors of
each so that's enough for a month's supply
I have fairly good, but also fairly expensive insurance, and with my insurance
I pay $130 for two transmitters, I pay $65 a month for sensors,
so that's with three sensors 30-day wear I don't remember how much I paid for the
receiver, but I did find it online, online it was around $200 without insurance
that means for me with insurance I pay $520 a year
for my transmitters and my sensors if I did not have insurance
it would look a little different so I went to Costco their pharmacy and I
looked up the prices so let's just have a look
so here we are on Costco's website, click drug pricing
and it takes you here you can type in the product so I’m going to type in Dexcom,
this is a drop down I’m going to choose the receiver
and here you see some of the prices for a receiver
it's about $200 and we can choose a new product
again Dexcom and I’m going to choose the sensor this time
so it shows me a sensor pack of 3 is about $300, that's a month supply
let's search again click Dexcom again now we're looking at the transmitters
so this is one transmitter I see the price for that is showing up here it's $130,
I’m rounding up
if you add all of that up that would be $1720 a year
and that's without the receiver as I said, it's not a cheap device
and those were the 7 things that I really hate about my Dexcom G6
but would I give it up, nope,
I still think it's a really powerful tool to help me manage my diabetes
on a day to day basis
thank you so much for watching this video on what I hate about my Dexcom G6
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