Dexcom Hacks

If you're trying to put the Dexcom Green-backed patch on the back of your arm (after installing the sensor there), you only have one (1) hand available for manipulating the patch.
[Dexcom assist products here]

However, the patch is designed to be manipulated with two hands. Fingers of each hand are needed to grab the two tiny, grabbable extensions pointing out from the oval shape. (See image on right)

That's a problem of course. Because you only have one freely movable hand. It's one of a number of problems encountered when attempting to plant the sticky and flexible patch flat against the skin at the back part of your arm and in alignment with the sensor.

Here's an interesting aside: I had not previously thought to "articulate" the several problems involved. Articulation can be an important part of solving problems that we sense but don't formally address. [See QAB-y here] [See wiki article here]

The impetus for this post is that I had made a hard plastic "gizmo" (not shown) for home use. The plastic piece is transparent and is used with aid of my iPhone camera in facetime mode to hold and apply the patch to the back of my arm with just one hand.

But in a recent road trip, I forgot to bring the gizmo with me. I did however have some Ziploc bags on hand and some scotch tape.

Turned out to be enough to hack together an applicator of sorts. Perhaps superior to my at-home, hard plastic gizmo.

STEP  # 1: 

Peel off the two transparent adhesive covers and re-attach them to the top and bottom fringe adhesive areas of the patch as shown, with the patch in adhesive-side up orientation and with the pointy ends pointing left and right atop a see-through portion of the Ziploc bag.

Then tape the upper and lower fringes of the peels to the bag.

Note that this is done near the stiffer sealing rib of the bag.  It will serve as a "handle" of sorts for your free hand at application time.

STEP  # 2: 

Roll up the opposed side of the bag to create a second stiff rib that will also serve as a relatively stiff "handle".

With your free hand holding the stiffer ribs, and with your smartphone camera showing you the back of your hand where the Dexcom G7 sensor is already installed, carefully align the hole of the patch over the the sensor and then press flat using the flexibility of the Ziploc bag for allowing a flat press-on operation.

Then pull away the Ziploc bag from the attached green patch so that you can remove the easily removable peels that are left behind.

STEP  # 3 : 

And there you have it. Maybe not perfect in this one time trial and mostly success. The patch hole fits neatly about the sensor and the green patch is mostly adhered flat to the back of your arm.

Wait for the green cover to fall off on its own and then cover the whole thing with a SkinGrip "full cover" patch.

NOT YET READY FOR PRIME TIME .... ??? more ????

How to attach the green patch while on the road

Recognize one of the problems = finger extensions are too small

Fool-proof Alignment of the Green Backed Patch

To the right, you see an image of a simple a simple tool for aligning the Green-Backed Dexcom (GBD) Patch to an installed sensor.

On the see-through plastic cover for a Chinese takeout container we have a melted-through hole slightly bigger than the hole of the GBD patch. Then an old GBD patch adhered to the backside for reference.

On the top side (the side that will press tht skin) we have two peel-off plastics already taped into place relative to the backside reference GBD patch.

We add the new GBD patch, adhesive side up to the top side and in alignment with the backside reference one.

To the left of the plastic cover we see a tube of diameter slightly smaller than the hole with a flexible plastic "shoe horn" taped to surround the tube for 180 degrees and extend slightly past the base of the tube.

We hang the plastic extension on top of the installed new sensor and then slide the plastic cover assembly up the tube towards the hung end of the flexible plastic (in this case, cut out from the eye doctor's sun shades)

Works like magic.
The new GBD patch aligns to the hung-on flexible half tube and thus to the installed sensor !!!!

More Dexcom Hacks

QAB-y ::: Using Packaging Materials for DIY Hacks
    --^^^-- Make a Strong & Elegant Box from Scrap Cardboard  [= COMPELing ]
    --^^^-- QAB-y ::: Using Plastic Packaging Materials for DIY Hacks
    --^^^-- ​Stop Throwing Away Plastic Containers! Mind-Blowing DIY Ideas / DIY NVENT
                [= DIY INVENT ] [play = plastics ]

    --^^^-- Don't Throw Away Plastic Bottles! Brilliant Reuse Ideas ♻️ | DIY Invent 

    --^^^-- 
    --^^^-- 
    --^^^-- 
    --^^^-- 
    --^^^-- 
    --^^^-- 

This --> (sequence of images on right) was an attempt that almost worked except the OD (outer diameter) of the plastic bottle was a tad too large.  No margin of white shows when placed over the white post card. Oh well. At least now I have a sample to compare with when I stumble across a similar sized bottle

QAB-g ::: Hacks Using Plastic Bottles
 ^^^-- ::: How to reuse plastic bottles for projects
    ^^^-- Melt it while wearing mask and form new plastic items, fill them with coins or other heavy solids (sand) to make weights, ... more ???

YT ::: 56 Brilliant Ways To Reuse Plastic Bottles [settings / speedup x2] [= RomanUrsuHack[s] ]
^^^-- 195 Brilliant Ways To Reuse Plastic Bottles [3 hours]

Alternative to "finding" just the right size: Lathe down a light wood dowel

Materials:
1) Plastics
    1a) Hard, rigid
    1b) Soft, flexible
2) Woods
3) Metals (e.g. aluminum can, aluminum foil)

Sources of Materials:

    Food containers & Lids
    Soda /Drink containers / bottles
    Medical Containers & Lids
    Beauty supplies, Cleaning supplies

Methods
    Make cylinders, bands, strings
    Additive = add tape, band material, flex metal strips
    Subtractive = lathe off, cut, scratch, 
    Deform = with heat,  

I was wrong.
Cone in the middle doesn't work.
Several reasons for why:
  1) Not enough clearance
  2) Patch adhesive sticks to cone
  3) Holding cone in place is difficult

So here's an inverse solution:
    1) 2 or more alignment posts on the OUTSIDE and centered about the inserted sensor, the posts are held to the skin with one-sided transparent packaging tape
     2) A first mask situates over the inserted sensor and has holes for marking the positions of the to-be-taped on alignment posts
    3) A second mask has larger holes in same spots for receiving the alignment posts and riding down on them with the green patch being mounted on the mask and centered relative to those externally-surrounding alignment posts

And here's an even better solution:
The double-throw hinge method:
1) moving part of hinge has hole for sensor and and patch
2) stationary part of hinge has location holes / pen lines for repeat alignment after you center the hinge hole in dry-run mode first, mark the pen holes /lines then but don't tape on yet
3) Add the "hot" patch on the hole (adhesive exposed)
4) re-align and tape the stationary part
5) throw the moving part a second time with the "hot" patch on it 

MORE TO EXPLORE

Central target surrounded by alignment columns [inverted image of ]
Gazebo example