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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Amazing! Love Dexcom G4 Platinum

Anyone who has followed my blog for some time knows my daughter, 12, has T1 and refused to her core to wear a CGM. I forced the Minimed one on her in 5th grade for exactly one week and she promised me to never, ever wear it again. It took me an hour and a half to get the thing on her and the only thing that worked was a threat that she could not attend a birthday party until she had it on.

The threat worked, but I did damage. The whole, "this hurts me more than it hurts you," may not have been true. It broke my heart. Here I had in my hands THE thing that could make my life easier as a mom of a child with T1 and she didn't want it. She resented me forcing it on her. It also hurt.

Well, she is in 7th grade now and this morning her blood sugar was 135. In fact, in was in that range all night. I checked it by rolling over and looking at a hot pink Dexcom G4 Platinum Continuous Glucose Monitor!

My daughter and I were headed out of town Friday with her best friend. We planned to leave at 4:30 p.m. and she got off the bus at 4:00. She hopped in the car and I handed her the already charged receiver and she thought it was too cool!

I had everything ready to go to put on the sensor on and was all smiles when I said we needed to get it on before her friend arrived at 4:30. We danced in anticipitation for about six minutes, but I didn't lose my cool. I stayed smiling and encouraging and finally she said, "Just do it!"

I counted to three, pushed the plunger, pulled back the collar to remove the needle an carefully removed the inserter from the sensor base. Putting in the transmitter is awkward and was probably the worst part, because you have to push down hard to get it to click twice into the sensor base, but she was OK. We agreed, that was indeed the worst part.

She and I were both surprised that the transmitter is so much thicker than the Dex Seven Plus. Really, it is tall, but right now, in winter, it isn't an issue, but come summer, we are going to have some issues I suspect.

Anyway, we hit the road and she calibrated in the car two hours after starting the sensor and about an hour from our destination. Interestingly, her first BG check was 237, so she entered it as one of the first two calibrations. Her next BG was 135, so she entered that. The receiver asked for another check, thanks to the wide disparity, so she checked again and it was 132. The calibration took! I think the Minimed would have just said Cal Error and I would have had to wait and try again later.

Spending the night at my sister's house was to be the highlight of our trip. I was going to stay with my mom and my daughter and friend with Aunty, Uncle and baby. Her first night, my sister was up with the baby at 5:30 a.m. and she heard this crazy beeping. She text me to ask if she had an alarm set, but I was zonked out. She finally went in to investigate the sound and found her Dex buzzing and beeping. It said LOW in red letters, 55. My sister had trouble waking her up, but finally got a glass of juice in her. I am SO grateful! So, so grateful!!

It has been within 10 points accurate and is supposed to be stellar from day four to seven.

I asked my daughter last night what she thinks of it so far and she said she loves it!

More later about the pros and cons. I downloaded and used the software, have issues with the alarms and the transmitter size, but need a few more days to evaluate. For more info, read Kerri Sparling's blog Six Until Me for her first and second impressions of the Dexcom G4 Platinum.


5 comments:

Kelly said...

AWESOME! I too, forced the MM CGM on my daughter in 5th grade (she was faking CRAZY LOW LOWS to get outta math) and it wasn't a bad experience so much, but now she too has hard feelings about the CGM and we havent used one since!
-Sigh- I hope it all continues to go well for you BOTH!!

Wendy Morgan said...

It is so hard to be patient with this disease, but I think, at least with my daughter, that waiting her out was a very good and torturous move for me.

I am still irritated the Minimed Enlite hasn't come out yet. I want, want, want the CGM and pump combined. Right now, she keeps the Dexcom in her BG kit in her backpack and it is working well. I love the distance she can get since it isn't attached to her body. I got an alarm last night that she was over 300 and I ended up changing her infusion set. So relieved to get that alarm, but boy, I had to wait a LONG time.

I think that this thing looking like an iPod helped for her. It is cool looking and not so foreign looking if her friends see it out. Good luck with your kiddo, Kelly. ***Breathe***

Unknown said...

My 12 year old daughter started the Medtronic cgm 1 month after starting the pump and, although she doesn't like the insertion of the cgm, she doesn't fight me on wearing it. Got the mySentry right away and love it. I've heard that the Enlite/Veo will be out soon (very soon)...but don't know if it will work with the new pump/cgm system. Do you know? I was told that you the Enlite can't be used with the Paradigm Revel and that the Guardian can't be used with the mySentry. Any insight? Is this just the "official" FDA word?

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