[Diabetes-talk] Dex com and T simple

[Sandra Ryan]

Last weekend, I attended the Taking Control of Your Diabetes seminar in Des
Moines, Iowa.  It's a good program--practical, they admit no one's perfect,
and there's lots of good education and exhibits.  I spoke in a session about
continuous glucose monitoring about our inaccessibility issue.  The session
presenters were a young doc from California who has diabetes, and the editor
of Diabetes Forecast, who lives here and also has diabetes.  Before I spoke,
a lady had mentioned that Medicare won't pay for CGM.  The doctor told us
that, of the technologies currently available, all are great, but CGM is the
most useful, because it gets at one of people's most common complaints:
having to poke themselves for glucose readings.  

I said that diabetics who are blind or visually impaired have a different
problem: None of the CGM's or insulin pumps are accessible.  Both presenters
said they are aware of this, and that they believe these technologies must
be made accessible.  I was told both in this session and the one on insulin
pumps that the research demonstrating improved quality and quantity of life
using technologies has been done and is readily available, and both
presenters agreed it is a problem for blind people that they can't have the
best treatments because of inaccessibility.  

I also spoke with a representative of Tandem and one from Johnson & Johnson,
who makes the Animus pump.  The Animus rep understood why we need
accessibility and encouraged me to work toward getting it.  The Tandem rep
clicked his pen about a thousand times and told me that negotiations to get
accessible pumps and CGM's "will never be friendly."  

In one of the education sessions, I learned that the Medtronic screens are
very hard for anyone to read, that the Animus is much more readable, but
still difficult.  I have a handout, but from memory I think it was the
Omnipod that was most readable, but it had a different problem.  Definitely
none is perfect.

So it was an interesting way to spend a Saturday.

Sandi

-----Original Message-----
From: Diabetes-talk [mailto:diabetes-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Mike Freeman via Diabetes-talk
Sent: Wednesday, October 1, 2014 4:06 PM
To: 'Tamera'; 'Diabetes Talk for the Blind'
Subject: Re: [Diabetes-talk] Dex com and T simple

Way to go, tamera. Hopefully, those people came away at least slightly
enlightened.

Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: Diabetes-talk [mailto:diabetes-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Tamera via Diabetes-talk
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2014 12:43 PM
To: diabetes-talk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Diabetes-talk] Dex com and T simple

I walked in the local JDRF walk this past Sunday and spoke with a person
from Tandem who makes the T simple pump, and she also uses a DEX com
herself, and wondered  if anyone is using either or finding any usable
accessibility with these. 

They sound terrific, but  meaningless with the lack of user accessibility.

Tamera

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