Pros and cons vs G5 – Dexcom Follow Review

Been using G6 for more than a year now. Daughter is T1D, diagnosed 4 years ago. We used the G5 as well. Here’s a comparison, mostly for Dexcom’s benefit (I don’t think you can get G5 anymore). Dexcom: overall I strongly prefer the G5, due to software data smoothing on G6. G6 pro vs G5: * finger sticks not required. G6 con vs G5: * G6 data is averaged/filtered in a way that is a major step back from G5. This causes continued frustration, even after using for more than a year. Compression errors and other sensor oddities were much easier to recognize on the G5. G5 compression errors showed as a big step in the data. Over a few weeks, these became easy to recognize, and could be safely ignored. Diabetes BG doesn’t move in giant steps without a dramatic cause. G6 compression errors show up as dangerous looking drops in BG, smoothed to the point that they are difficult to distinguish from actual blood sugar emergencies. This makes false alarms (meaning panicked parents and other caregivers) much more frequent. Detecting BG emergencies (especially while sleeping) is primary reason for the device, and it’s harder to tell on the G6. Remember the boy who cried wolf. False alarms dangerously erode my willingness/capacity to respond to real emergencies. She’s had real emergencies, and I’m thankful for the CGM which alerted us. But false alarms on G6 outnumber real ones by at least 4 to 1. As the sensor neared the end of its life, the G5 readings would become erratic/noisy. After a 3 or 4 sensors, this was easily recognized. “Time for a new sensor!” With the G6, the curves are nearly always beautiful and believable. They just might not have anything to do with my daughter’s actual blood sugar and health. G6 data smoothing requires much more detective work to recognize a faulty/failing G6 sensor. Diabetes requires enough detective work on its own. Show me the non-smoothed data, thank you. The G5 did not attempt to re-write history. Diabetes treatment requires knowing the timing of various events. We often measure time from a particular BG value. “I was 225 uppish, so I gave myself a 2.2 U bolus.” The G6 data smoothing will rewrite this history. On the next reading, the 225 might get rewritten as 217 or 232. So later when we try to check: “did your insulin kick in”, the answer is harder. Hum...don’t see 225 in the history anymore. The time since eating/bolus used to be at our fingertips. With G6 data smoothing, the times are fuzzier. I’ve even seen cases where a 95 downish (alarm triggered) is re-written so her BG never went below 100. Trust me, the BG value when an alarm hits sticks in my head far more clearly than the time. Having a history consistent with the readings is a feature of the G5 I moderately miss. Other two consequences of data smoothing are far more problematic. Thanks for reading. Please make the software change. No more data smoothing, please.
Review by mbb84335 on Dexcom Follow.