That was me this morning… after seeing this:
And again when I saw this:
These were taken an hour apart. Granted, the one at 9:45am was sort of accurate with my meter reading, but I attributed it to the fact that I had eaten a Special K cereal bar and I figured it caused the spike. Then, and hour later, (as you can see) I was shocked to see that the Dexcom was reading almost 300! Not something a diabetic, let alone a pregnant one, wants to see. So, I checked with my meter, and lo and behold I’m almost half of what the Dexcom is reading. See, I knew I shouldn’t have spiked that high because with foods like cereal, I don’t give a standard bolus, I give a super bolus to help that post-cereal spike. Granted, 157 is still high in preggo-d terms, but hey, it’s much better than 250-300.
The whole Dexcom issue is just really starting to get to me. It’s rarely ever accurate now, and it seems to be magnetically drawn to the top or bottom. I swear if it could show me a negative number, it would. I was thinking I just had a bad box of sensors, but since using the new ones from the brand new shipment and still getting bad readings, I’m just not happy. I don’t know what else to do to make this thing work. Maybe I’m just one of the special ones that can’t use a Dexcom while pregnant. I wish I could, but I can’t deal with it being off all of the time. I’ll give it another try with a new sensor starting Saturday, but if it still doesn’t work, I may have to just let it rest in the drawer til after August (eeek!).
this is why you don’t dose based on CGM readouts. ever.
If it makes you feel better, Caleb is having a DexCom wrong day. He’s “Star Student” for the week which only means it’s his turn to be center of attention and share things and such. But it’s been cut short bc of the holiday and continued snow days. On top of that DexCom has been buzzing all day and wrongly so, further interrupting his Star Student time. Boo! Sometimes they calibrate wonderfully and sometimes not. I hope it corrects. I think it just happens every so often. I hope the next one is better.
We’ve only been Dexing for a little while. When I get those inaccuracies it drives me INSANE!!!! I know this might sound crazy, but we get the best readings when her sensor is placed horizontally on the back of the arm. It feels weird having it in a horizontal position, but, so far, it’s the BEST sensor we’ve had.
Not that it helps the frustration at all, but I’d call Dexcom tech support. Even though they can’t fix the sensor, they can send replacements and log the sensor lot number. Seems like sensor issues have been going around lately. Maybe there really is a bad batch.
I am having the same problems with my Dexcom, so don’t blame your pregnancy just yet. I can’t figure it out. I thought maybe it was my *ahem* over-calibrating but the issues are persisting. Dexcom gave me a baffling 311 reading and when I pulled my meter to check, it was 132. WTF? I’m on the verge of a hiatus (again).
THIS!! This is what drives me batty about my CGMS! Mine has issues too! Yes, not helpful during pregnancy when diabetes is already basically a full-time job. Hang in there and test and test! Happy Pregnancy!
If it makes you feel any better, I ditched mine quickly during my pregnancy and my A1C’s have been fine. You can read about my decision Here: http://sweetchild-of-mine.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-a1c.html if interested. I found it to be so horribly wrong all the time that it was making me crazy–not something I needed when I am already testing 10++ times a day anyway due to the pregnancy. Ultimately, you have to decide what works best for you.