Category: Pumping

My pump, the Animas IR1200 comes with 4 basal rates, but right now, only one is truly useful. Basal Rate 1. I’ve decided to try to come up with 3 more useful basal rates.

They are going to be weekend, agility, and workshop.

Basically weekend has the same basal rate all day that I use for my evening basal rate.

agility has the same schedule, but the basal rate is 10% higher. I got this idea from another pumper. Basically during an agility trial, I spend the entire day too high, so I’m going to up my basal rate, test more frequently and then eat to prevent lows. That will hopefully prevent some of the fatique I’ve been dealing with.

The last one is workshop, and hopefully I’ll think to switch to that basal rate the night before a workshop. It’s about 50% higher all day than my normal basal rate. I should set up my Treo to remind me to switch to that rate the night of December 5th since I have a workshop the next day. Hopefully I just made that adjustment.

Again, the principle is to drop my blood sugar low I will then test frequently to prevent an hypoglycemic episode since I get very physically ill when my blood sugar is too high.

Blogging this helped, as I’ve gone into my Treo and set events to alarm me and remind me to change my basal rates for the two upcoming trials and the workshop.

Animas is sending me a new IR1250 this week because I had something
really weird happen Saturday. I have my pump set to alarm at 20
units, and it didn’t alarm until I had only 7 units left. The weird
part, is that I had bolused at least 3 times before that, and it
didn’t alarm.

The only thing different was that I was doing an extended bolus.

Okay, not the post menopausal — I hadn’t hit that point yet, but I sure can’t lose weight without exercise, and mid section weight is the last to go.

Welcome To Diabetes In Control – EXERCISE REQUIRED FOR VISCERAL FAT LOSS IN TYPE 2 POSTMENOPAUSAL WOMEN

This study examined the effects of aerobic exercise without weight loss, a hypocaloric high monounsaturated fat diet (HMF) and diet exercise (D E) on total abdominal and visceral fat loss in obese postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes.

Well, I’m about to see what kind of service I get from Animas. I was changing my batteries tonight, the pump tipped over and the corner of the battery door chipped off, which I think means the pump isn’t water tight any more….

I did call this evening — 12:43 am there time, and they said leave a message if it is urgent, and since the pump is still functioning it doesn’t seem urgent.

I’ll call first thing in the morning, and remember to keep my pump dry!

Medtronic MiniMed – Patients and Families

Knew this one was coming. The sad part, is that they were so callous about changing the set, ignoring user compliants, then finally acknowledging the problem.

Of course, they have a history of this. B&D Logic Meter, waterproof problems with 512/712 series etc.

So far, Animas problems have been quickly and quietly fixed.

One of the issues I’ve been having recently is sites. I’ve had several pull out for dumb reasons. I’ve put a couple in that just flat didn’t work, just a complete set of weird circumstances designed to add to the stress.

The good news is that I’ve had 4 successful changes now in a row, and have had two sites last for 3 days each. Life is much cheaper that way, since the infusion sets run about $10.00 a piece.