Wearing 2 Navigator receivers at the same time...lessons learned

I've had T1DM since 1966 and hav been pumping since 1983. I've been using the Nav since last year. I wear it continuously. I can't count anymore how many severe lows and highs have been averted by this technology. Of course, A1C is tighter than ever (below 7%). I chose the Nav based on an insider recommendation. It took a while to get comfortable working around the 10 hour cal time, but I know this is short lived with the Nav 1.5 now in Europe. I LOVE the shallow penetration depth of the sensor, compared to the other two out there. I'm surprised this has not been more of a marketing lever for the Nav folks.

Also, I have learned how to make my Nav work for at least 40 days. It created a couple of minor problems, but well worth it: the tape had to be reinforced and I figured the secret to making that work, and the battery life in the transmitter is rated for 1 month only if you use the Renata 357 HC or Varta 357 HC batteries. I made the error of using commercial Evereadys, which gave out on me after 2-3 sensor runs. Whe I take down te sensor, I can hardly see the insertion site and there is no irritation or redness. I could probably wear it longer if I tried.

My routine is to wear for about a month now. The sensor actually seems to work better the longer you wear it. But it may just be me. I get a great return on investment for sensors and now have a lot of "expired" dates in my sensor pool.

I'm wearing two receivers as a test right now. It's not sanctioned by anyone. I just can. The newer receiver had some trouble settling in, while the older one worked fine. I called the company and tried to explain this problem with the receiver, but they took about 20 minutes to understand I had linked both receivers to the same transmitter; something the person on the help line didn't know was possible and struggled with me about until she spoke to an engineer and agreed I had done this.

She still didn't get it. She kept telling me the transmitter was "settling in" and that was why the second cal was giving me successive cal "second failed 18" messages. Even when I told her the parallel receiver had no trouble passing the 1st and 2nd cals, she said it was a "transmitter" settling issue. I finally told her that the sensor had been in almost a month and was very "settled in". Sadly, she still stuck to her guns.

Frankly, the Nav may be too good. My dual receivers were off slightly at first, most likely since the cal BG readings were different by about 10 mg/dl for the fisrt cal. And that is using the same drop of blood for both cals (done about 2 seconds apart!).

Variance in this receiving system I'm wearing now is being measured by using one transmitter and two receivers. The first 24 hours they remained about 8-10 mg/dl apart, but with the 3rd cal, it tightened things up to 4 points and with the 4th (last cal), they are both within 1 point of each other (right now). They should be: they get the same electronic signal from the transmitter. It all comes down to the internal software and cal BG data in the receiver.

Yet, when I check the fasting BG after a nice straight overnight BG pattern, there is nearly identical results with the cap BG. In fact, the majority of the variance in the steady state is easily the accuracy/variance of the test stripitself and my blood sample and technique.

Of course, as we all know, flux will cause a lag effect with all our CGMS devices. But I know that most of us have learned to think "4th dimensionally" in regards to our CGMS data an making decisions regarding our management (micro-bolusing and micro-cabing as needed).

Finally, my secret to removing the transmitter uses a commonly available tool found in every bathroom. I'll talk about that if anyone is interested in hearing about it.