I had to do my first solo Minimed Guardian sensor change Friday, and I took the opportunity to take some pictures.

While I know there are ways to extend the sensor, my skin was getting itchy and sort of painful, so I decided it was best not to try my luck and go ahead and switch things out. After I got up and showered, I went ahead and placed the new sensor in my upper thigh, which, once again, gave me no trouble using the Sen-serter. (Shhh! I actually like the device! No gearing up to do a manual insertion – it does it for me!)  I made a make-shift Band-Aid to cover it using IV3000 and cutting a square to cover the sensor out of the paper and making a sensor sandwich to cover it (sensor, paper, then IV3000) but make it easy to remove and not pull the sensor out when I was ready to do the switch.

So, at around 1pm, I started to do the process of switching everything out. I was so used to Dexcom’s way of going into the menu to stop the old sensor and then start the new one when you were ready, that I went completely confused when I didn’t see a similar setup in the Guardian’s layout. I went back and referred to the manual and the online tutorial, but those ( I thought ) only applied to inserting your first sensor… not how to do a replacement “new” sensor. So what did I do? Yep – I called Minimed Customer Support and asked them to walk me through the process. I have to give them an A+++++ on this because the rep I spoke with was very understanding, patient, and very eager to help me and even double-checked with me to be sure I understood the process completely. He went above my expectations. He not only walked me through, but he made sure I understood the process well enough for the next change out as well. That’s what I call great customer service!

I knew that the area had been itching that night before and that morning, but I figured it was just about that time that I get rashes from glue adhesives and it would be fine as soon as I changed everything out. Well, when I took everything out and off, this is what I was left with:

Not only did I have a rash from the glue, but somehow, my skin had been cut between where the clam-shell transmitter and the butt-end of the sensor meet. I’m hoping this won’t be a recurring thing with the sites and it was just that I had placed this one on my side. Granted, the user guide does state not to put the sensor in an area where your body moves a lot, so putting it on my side was not the best idea. But with being as pregnant as I am, we weren’t sure where to put the sensor during training since my stomach wouldn’t be safe right now, and I didn’t really want to strip down to put it in my leg either. So just a word of caution.. do what the book says… no insertion in “bending” areas!

BUT! On to the sensor itself. Setup went just as the first insertion. I recharged the transmitter, clipped it into the sensor that had been on my leg waiting for 5 hours by this time (I wanted to be sure to get it plenty “wet” and see if it helped with readings right off the bat), and tapped it down with IV3000. In the monitor, instead of having a menu option of “stop sensor” to stop the old one, you just go and tell the Guardian monitor to “start new sensor” and it begins the 2 hour warm-up period.

After the two hours, I calibrated and stayed pretty well on-track with no problems. I will say this though. Not only is it important to calibrate when your bg is steady and all that good stuff that they tell you, always clean your fingers. I know this should be a given, but I am very guilty of not making sure my hands are clean when testing. And how often do we fuss and complain about variability in CGMs verses meters when we’re probably testing with not-so-clean fingers? I know some of you out there are not as slack in that area as I used to be, but I have now made it a point to try to make sure I clean my fingers before testing, especially if that number is going to be used for calibration…. because what’s the point of calibrating if you’re going to give it a bad number anyway?

I’m scheduled for my second change out today. Debating on trying to extend it or change it. I’ll let you know on that one later.

And, just in case you wanted to see them, here’s some more pictures of what the sensor looks like (granted, this one is used, so please ignore the dried blood in places… I tried to clean it but some got left behind):

If you look really closely at the sensor wire, you’ll see that it’s coated… I’m assuming that’s the difference between why you can take acetaminophen with their sensor and not with the Dexcom? Hmm.

-Sarah