[Diabetes-talk] Now a question about insulin pumps

[Veronica Elsea]

Bridget, first, were you looking at the Animas Ping? And was it the 
Medtronic Rebel?
I think what would serve you best is to suggest some questions you 
might put to both reps and see how you feel at the end of it all.
First, there is a major difference in how the two pumps calculate and 
deliver basal insulin. The Animas is the most identical to the Cozmo 
in that it divides your hourly rate and delivers a portion every 
three minutes. The medtronic uses the amount of the basal to sort out 
how much is delivered when. If you have a really small hourly basal 
rate, you only get delivery a few times per hour.
Second, ask about insulin on board. Here's my biggest gripe with the 
Medtronic. Let's say you've bolused for a meal and then you test two 
hours later. If you've entered your bolus through the easy bolus 
wizard, the amount you have left in your system after those two hours 
is not calculated into the insulin on board. So if you give yourself 
a correction for a high BG, I'd worry that you'd be back to the 
problem of stacking insulin, which is one of the real benefits of 
being on a pump, in my opinion.
Third, take a good look at the infusion sets. With the Medtronic, you 
can only use their infusion sets. The Animas does allow you to use 
the same ones you're using now, if you like them. The down side of 
the Animas, in my mind, is that you do have a few more button pushes 
to do things, when compared to the Cozmo. And things like having to 
prime again just because you change the battery. In my stint with the 
Medtronic, I found it harder to work the way I like to, separating 
out the correction bolus from the meal bolus. All the questions drove 
me nuts when I just wanted to say here, give me insulin to match my 
food. <grin.> I do like the cartridge holder on the Medtronic though. 
But it still bugs me that neither one has the option of key beeps. At 
least the Animas menus don't wrap around. And at least it does have 
the audio bolus button on the side.
And in the early days, it also matters which company has the trainer 
that will work with you most easily. I actually know a sighted guy 
here who chose his pump based on who had the slickest video. The 
funny thing is he's probably had the fewest complaints about living 
with his pump than all of us in our support group. <grin.> Down the 
road, the Animas will be working with the Dexcom continuous glucose 
monitor, which is much less expensive than the Medtronic version and 
I like it much better. Oh, the other thing about the Animas is that 
with its software, you can set up custom sounds for some of the 
alarms, although not necessarily the ones I'd like to customize. 
<grin.> I haven't actually had the chance to play with either 
company's software, but not for lack of trying!
And my local Animas rep did just tell me that they're changing how 
things work in the correction bolus screen, so that should actually 
become possible for us to do again. If you want those details, feel 
free to write me off list and I'll share them with you so you can 
pester your rep about it. <grin.>
If I had to choose now, I think I might go with the Animas because 
the insulin calculations and delivery match what I've had with the 
Cozmo. But either way, it's a bit of a come down from the Cozmo and 
trust me, in a year and a half, I'll likely be whining here for sure.
Anyway, feel free to keep chatting here about this and I hope I've 
given some things to think about for the moment. If anything else 
occurs to me in the next day or so, I'll certainly give you a shout. 
Hang in there and please keep us posted on the process and what you 
decide to do.

Veronica
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