More Arm Troubles

Well I pulled another Freestyle Libre sensor off today.

I noticed after the first day or two of putting this sensor in with Skintac that my arm was itching. I was hoping that it would be okay. Well a few days ago part of the sensor came off my arm. The skin underneath looked a little red but I was hopeful it would be okay. I tried putting a bit more Skintac onto it to hold it down; when that didn't work I put a bandaid to help (I bought a new box of them specifically for things like this!)

Earlier today, the other side started falling off. There was also some dried gooey yellowish stuff on the edges of the sensor adhesive. I figured that might be dried up Skintac (I've never used it before so I have no idea what it should do/look like) and wasn't too worried. I put a second bandaid on to hold it down. 

From there, things deteriorated quickly. The sensor stopped working - it told me I was Lo when I very clearly wasn't (blood glucose at the time was 8.0 mmol/L). This sensor hasn't been super accurate (it's been about 1-2 mmol/L off all the way along), but I knew this wasn't right. Also the new bandaid suddenly had a wet spot on it; the goo was actively coming from my arm (not dried Skintac). So I pulled it off and sure enough, my arm was disgusting underneath. I'm really glad I pulled everything off when I did; who knows what it would have looked like if I'd left it on for another 6 days.

So now I have a new plan: I'm going to try using Tegaderm as a barrier between my arm and the sensor. I used a hole punch to punch a hole through the tegaderm for the needle; I really hope I lined it up correctly (you can see some lines I drew on the Tegaderm as I tried to line everything up). I'm hoping this works since the problem last time seemed to be from the Libre adhesive, not the Tegaderm. 

As to my other arm, I've cleaned it up as best as I can (it really stings when I touch it right now) and put some cortisol on it to help it heal. Hopefully it will feel better soon!!!