Have you seen me?
I removed my old CGM sensor this morning before my shower, and planned on inserting a new one afterwards.
Only, my inserter has gone missing. I tore the bedroom and bathroom apart trying to find it, and… nothing. (But there’s a lot of clutter, it still could be hiding somewhere).
And you can’t put these things in manually. So right now, I’m flying blind without a sensor.
It’s terrifying.
I can’t state enough how terrifying it is, even though I lived for decades without one, and lived to tell about it. But times are different, and my level of control is tighter.
Looking back (all the way back to yesterday), every one of those thirteen vibrating alerts that grabbed my attention was a cue that I’m drifting. Those rumble strips* are the reason I took action and ended up steering my trends in a (relatively) straight line.
Without them, I might crash.
*”Rumble” strips are those indentations on the shoulder of a highway which cause a car to buzz and shake when a driver drifts out of lane. I first heard the metaphor of CGM thresholds as rumble strips from SixUntilMe’s Kerri, but she heard it from someone else…but I can’t remember who. I’d like to attribute proper credit, so if someone knows the source, please leave it in the comments. UPDATE: Gary Scheiner is the genius who came up with the metaphor. Thanks, Kim, for the credit and the link!
Posted on August 22, 2014, in Diabetes. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
Rolling in the D 
Do you get just the one inserter for the life of the device? That seems crazy to me. They should hand those things out like paper clips. Could the Medtronic sales rep deliver you a new one?
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My local contact is on vacation, but I’m working through the chain.
And yes, you only get one..unless you go out and get more. And really, that’s all anyone should need (now, if someone had taken my earlier advice and stuffed an Enlite in a Mio shell, life would be grand). But if a missing $25 inserter might stop someone from using $250 sensors, then you’re right, they should be giving them away.
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I was gonna say… I’ll bet Medtronic has a lot of those in the warehouse. So don’t be longer than 24 hours without one. Hope it’s a good day anyway.
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Call and get an extra one. Even if the other one turns up it never hurts to have 2. I only have one Enlite serter, but I’ve had the same 2 quickset inserters for over a decade. I lost one once and purchased an extra one. They’ve both followed me for years since.
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Credit, I believe, goes to Gary Scheiner (circa 2009): http://integrateddiabetes.com/Articles/cgm/cgm%20beyond%20the%20numbers%20article.pdf
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I was thinking it might have been him, but wasn’t sure. I also thought it was within the past year – but I guess I was wrong. Thanks!
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Too bad you can’t insert it manually. With the medtronic sites, I lost my inserter after the first month and just poked that giant needle into me the rest of my 10 years on the pump. It wasn’t pretty, but at least there was a manual route of doing things. I didn’t realize that some of the new technology requires a special inserter
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Apparently there is (unofficially) a way (it’s on YouTube somewhere), but it seems quite intricate and easy to screw up – and since I was in a rush to get ready for work, it wasn’t the time to try it.
Since the Enlite has a special base built-in to work with the inserter, it’s not as simple as peeling back adhesive and removing a needle guard. Also, I understand that, because of the delicate sensor wire, it needs to go in with a quick motion and not the slow-poke as I tend to prefer.
But I agree…I used to always do my Silhouette sites manually; I’ve never been a huge fan of inserters.
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