Freestyle Libre & Omnipod

[seawife]

Hi
Maybe a daft question but can you place the Freestyle sensor anywhere else except on your arms? The advice I've been given is no, but I'm also using the Omnipod Pump & have found that insulin absorption is better if the pod is also on my arm, which means I look a bit weird with everything on my arms. I work in a healthcare setting so I have to be bare below the elbows. I was just wondering if anyone else had tried putting the Freestyle sensor anywhere else as I didn't want to waste a sensor! Thanks

 

[AndBreathe]

Hi
Maybe a daft question but can you place the Freestyle sensor anywhere else except on your arms? The advice I've been given is no, but I'm also using the Omnipod Pump & have found that insulin absorption is better if the pod is also on my arm, which means I look a bit weird with everything on my arms. I work in a healthcare setting so I have to be bare below the elbows. I was just wondering if anyone else had tried putting the Freestyle sensor anywhere else as I didn't want to waste a sensor! Thanks

Hi seawife. Firstly, I'm not a T1, nor do I use insulin, never mind a pump, but I have Libre experience.

The Libre is only supported when used on the arms. I don't know what Abbott's attitude would be if you had apparently malfunctioning or unreliable sensor issues.

If your pump is on one arm, could you have your sensor on the other? If your work attire is short sleeved, provided it's not a very short, cap sleeve, you could easily apply the sensor well up on your arm. I have done this several times in summer where sleeves can be shorter than usual.

I know there are several forum users who routinely move their sensors around, or apply them routinely to their upper legs or tummies, without issue. I tried on on my tumm, which was OK, but I did almost pull it off when taking off some very fitted jeans. That could have been trained out of me, if I repeated the process.

Unfortunately, I have had a few sensors read rather wonkily, so I comply with the guidelines to minimise the potential for one of those "special conversations" where I hand over a reason to reject any concept of sensor failure due to non-compliance with the guidelines.

There have been a few threads on this, and a couple of very, very long and very comprehensive threads on the Libre, so it would be worth a search for much wider opinions.

 

[tim2000s]

Hi @seawife, you can place the sensor anywhere you want to, however, Abbott have only got licensing for the arm, so they will not guarantee that it works anywhere else. So if you were to use your leg, for example, and it failed, were you to tell Abbott this, they would not replace it.