Post by Coral. Read her bio here!
I thought about doing a post about Halloween, but realized that Halloween is one holiday where I kind of pretend that I am not a diabetic for 12 hours… so I don’t want to talk about it!
I have officially jumped on the pump wagon. I don’t actually have one yet, but I did do step one and two: (1) met with my endo said, “I think I might want to try out the pump again, and (2) met with the diabetes educator (hadn’t been to one of these in years) and she said, “ok here are our options, let’s see if you’re ready for one.” Next week I go to get the iPro (Professional CGM). I’ll wear that for 5 days and then go back where they will download all of the blood sugar readings. Yipee!
The diabetes educator actually said something that really shocked me, but made me breathe a sigh of relief. As she walked off with my meter to go download the reading for the last couple of months (NO ONE has done that in YEARS!!), she heard the “oh shit” I whispered under my breath, but then said, “we don’t judge blood sugars here, we try to help.”
Ok Cornell, you folks are good in my book! After that I was able to actually open up to her and tell her about the frustrations I have been having. I knew that she was not going to judge me, rather actually HELP me find ways to improve.
So anyways, that brings me to pump choices: Medtronic Paradigm or the One Touch Ping / Animas.
Medtronic Paradigm
- “REAL-Time” continuous glucose monitoring – I say “REAL-Time” in quotes because folks have said that it is not really, real time. There is about a 10 minute lag. It’ll beep when you are too high and too low based on targets that you have set for yourself.
- Waterproof for 30 minutes up to 8 feet
- Meter will send blood sugar results to pump
- One button for bolus dosing!
** I had this pump for two years in college and twice it broke when I was in Mexico. My fault that I did not bring an extra pump when traveling, but still… it broke!
One Touch Ping:
- The “meter-remote” – you can dial in your insulin dosage to your meter and it will tell the pump to deliver it. This would be a huge help, because I tend to hide my pump in my bra and don’t really like to look like I am feeling myself up just to get my pump.
- Smallest basal increments – 0.025 U/hr
- Waterproof up to 12 ft for 24 hours
- The meter-remote can store up to 500 foods and their nutritional values – I bet it’s more accurate than my brain and beats trying to recall the carbo counting methods I learned when I was 11 years old.
- The pump screen is super easy to see similar to a television or digital camera display.
These are all things I have read about in the many brochures and websites I have been reading. Anyone else have thoughts about these two pumps?? Please share!
I’m in the same pre-pump boat, so can’t help much here.. but we WILL have our pump panel soon so I hope it is in time! Also, that is really awesome what that CDE said about judging her bgs – we need more like her!
I’m so glad you got positive feedback from your cde … I don’t think we hear that often enough.
As for your decision on which pump to choose, see my blog from last week (I think) and see other features I listed for both that I thought were good ones. Good luck deciding!
you go, girl!!!! i am so excited for you! you’re going to love it…as long as you can forget about the mexico “incident!”
good luck. let me know how i can help!
Big choice…I have the Omnipod. I’ve never used a traditional pump but if I had too! I would be Pinging it! Good luck! What’s the iPro?
It’s great that you are taking these steps Coral! Strange and wonderful that us non pumpers are slowly moving to the other side.
Coral I am so proud of you. I know this is not easy for you. i hope whatever you decide it is the right choice for “you”. Personally I love my Minimed. The good thing is you are not tied to your choice for the rest of your life. I would ask the CDE if she can get one of each so you can play with them and get a feel for them.
I’m leaning towards the ping
The iPro is a professional cgm. CDEs use them on patients sometimes – you wear a cgm sensor for a week, then go in and the CDE downloads all of your bloodsugars from that past week, compares it to the foods you have tracked, etc. It’s supposed to be extremely accurate. We’ll see!