• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Sensor keeps failing randomly in the middle of the night!!

M

Mrscsmith

Newbie
Messages
3
Type of diabetes
Don't have diabetes
Treatment type
I do not have diabetes
My husband is new to the minimed pump having been on injections now for 30 years with the dexcom G7. The guardian 4 sensors seem to be a massive backwards step. He has only had the pump now for about a month and in the last 10 days has had multiple failure sensors. So on Saturday night at 2am sensor failure… we had to get up and change it as it helpfully vibrated repeatedly so could not be ignored!! Now Wednesday 1:30am fail again. Luckily I am on holiday from work this week as I usually do night shift so possibly would not be home and there’s no way hubby could do this change himself as it’s a 2 person job… is it common to fail through the night? Any tips on avoiding this? He’s reaching the end of his tether with this and I fear he will give up on the pump due to the poor quality guardian 4 sensors.
 
Hi,

Welcome to the forum.
I inject.


I’ll tag in @Juicyj . Who I’m pretty certain has a minimed set up?

I use a Libre. Sometimes I loose connection which I believe to be WiFi or BT noise from next door?
It can overide when detecting I’m low on my phone. But I appreciate more than a concern with the technology used by your husband.
How close to any occupants of next door is your husband when this happens?
 
Thanks for the reply however I don’t think it’s as simple with the guardian 4. The hole thing seems to have to be replaced. No where near neighbours. He loved the libre and the dexcom g7 if only they worked with this pump
 
Hi - where exactly are the sensors being placed ?
 
Top of arms as recommended. He was told this is the only place licenced.
 
Top of arms is fine however where exactly on the arms ? Outside/inside/front ?

Sensor failure through the night can be attributed to compression applied to the sensor, I don't use the Guardian sensors - have been using Dexcom for over 5 years now, however when asleep, sleeping on it can depress the sensor causing a compression low which gives a false reading and i'm guessing with the Guardian can give a failure alert. Placing sensors on the bingo wing can help prevent this, I place my sensors on the inside of the arm to avoid it - also with using sensors it's good to place them around 12 hours before they are actually used to allow them to bed-in and helps avoid the erratic first 12 hours, some people call it marinating..!

It's easy to give up on tech if it doesn't comply immediately - however a little patience is required to adjust and fine tune to get the best results, stick with it though.
 
Last edited:
Although they say it isn’t licensed for use any where other than the arms you can (and people do) put them on their stomach and/or thighs. I’ve only ever put mine on my stomach which means I don’t need assistance to put it on and I rarely get sensor failures - my diabetic team are happy with where I put mine and see many people who do the same thing as me.
 
Back
Top