Weird skin week continues! Welcome back. Sometimes I think that diabetes makes my skin extra weird, extra sensitive, extra … extra. Like the bit with the Dexcom rash. I’ve been writing about my skin’s over-sensitivity to whatever is in the Dexcom adhesive for several years. Here’s a look back at some of the archives: Dexcom Pros and Cons 36 Hours…
Nothing to see here, especially if you’re looking for an adhesive-related Dexcom rash. Because ever since switching to the sensors that expire after 8/17/17, the rash is a thing of the past. Now I can wear my sensors for the recommended seven days (sometimes stretching it a day or two here and there, if I’m feeling bold), and my skin…
Today is Day 7. I’ll be pulling this sensor off in six hours. Day 7. No filter. No rash. No worries. #dexcom A post shared by Kerri Sparling (@sixuntilme) on Mar 6, 2017 at 6:07am PST No rash. No filter. Does this mean no worries? (For reference, this post is a follow up from a week ago when I put…
On the Dexcom and Libre Rash Facebook group, I saw a note posted back in December from someone referencing sensors with an expiration date after August 17, 2017. “Dex recently changed their mfg process to eliminate a substance that caused rashes in some. Get some expiration date AFTER 8/15/17 …” Huh. Interesting. (Read: HOLY SHIT COULD THIS BE TRUE??!!) I’ve been…
Frigging rash. The issue first presented itself back in August 2012, leaving me scratching my head and itching my sensor sites for the next four years. At first, I tackled the problem by trying a pile of different barrier tapes, but the only one that brought about any semblance of relief was the Toughpad. For about a year, I used a…
As this pregnancy continues on, so does the rapid rounding-out of my abdomen (today’s issue = not being able to zip my jacket without over-taxing the zipper). Feeling quite like Violet Beauregard from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Pluses to this expansion are that a. the pregnancy is progressing on schedule and b. the real estate options for my pump…
“Rotating sites? Hell yeah, I rotate.” … sort of. I’m good about rotating my pump and CGM (continuous glucose monitor) sites, but I’m decent, at best, about exploring new real estate. Most of the time, I use my outer thigh or lower back/hips for my CGM, going back and forth between those four areas. This sounds like proper rotating, in…
Am I a crumb because I want to rip my devices off sometimes and throw them into a great, blue hole? Like this one? My skin is so irritated by the adhesives and intrusions of my insulin pump and my CGM that the desire to heave them into this abyss is intense. the Great Blue Hole – I look at…
I wanna new tape, one that won’t itch! One that won’t give me big, fat welts or make my skin twitch, twitch! I wanna new tape, one that won’t give a rash! Make it easy to wear my Dex, without the urge to “Hulk, Smash.” (Channeling Huey Lewis and the News. Click it. You know you want to.) I’ve been…
Time for a bullet list of purged thoughts, brought to you by the bottom of my coffee pot. It’s not snowing. I don’t usually have a rage response to winter, but this one has been more than we could properly manage. (Like when our snow shovel broke under the weight of the drift we were shoveling through. Or when our…
Due to adhesive change/skin sensitivity/dermis witchcraft, the Dexcom rash seems to be a now-reliable side effect of wearing a CGM (or anything else with adhesive ability, honestly. Sometimes a bandaid gives me the scritchy-scratch). I feel best with the Dexcom data streaming, though, so I do whatever keeps the sensor on and the itch at a minimum. Which means ordering…
When I was younger, my pediatric endocrinologist told me that I shouldn’t be poking the syringes into the parts of my skin that didn’t hurt. “If you don’t feel the pinch of the needle, that means you have scar tissue building up, which can lead to poor absorption of the insulin.” She stayed on me about rotating injection sites, and…
The itch started back in July 2012, when I pulled off a Dexcom sensor and saw a prickly, hive-ish rash underneath where the sensor and transmitter had been placed. Blaming it on the summer heat and the recycled, dry air of airplane cabins, I figured it was a one-time thing and I’d be sorted out on the following sensor placement….