Living with Diabetes and Lapband

Animas Skins and Lens Film

First, let me say that it's a shame that Animas has to produce a lens film for the pump.  I know first hand there is a problem with the materials that the pump is made of, I managed to completely ruin one by rubbing it in my pocket -- I had it for a week.

I also think it should be free.

However, I got my lens film yesterday, and it comes in a kit, with three films.  We'll see how long they last.  Immediately pulled the cheap stuff I had on it, cleaned the pump and applied it.

Application was easy.

The skins are nice too, and having the added protection is nice.  They are a rubberized material, I got one in black, red and blue so I can change colors.  My Ping is black.  They are a tad expensive, but there is a limited customer supply.

Animas Insulin Pump Food Database

I'm excited and I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Those of us who have Animas pumps -- IR1000 on, will fully acknowledge that using EzManager to input favorites sucks. Especially if you have a lot of entries.

I get my food from a service in Dallas called Diet Gourmet.  Low fat, low salt, good flavored food and a no brainer.  They usually come with nutrional information on it but they just changed the menu.  Plus I don't get ALL the values in the log, which is kind of a bad thing right now since I'm on a medically supervised diet.  

Well, I got my replacement pump today, downloaded everything off the old and uploaded and thought, gee it would be nice to have my Diet Gourmet food in the database.

I tried individual entries made me nuts.  As always. I kept typing things in wrong.  Well, I finally got the bright idea of looking at a backup file.  GUESS WHAT!  Nice and simple XML file.

So I reformatted the Diet Gourmet excel sheets to match the order of the XML file, did a ton of cut and pasting, and I currently have not ONE week, but TWO weeks of Diet Gourmet meals in my pump.

Did find a nice little bug.  Oh, well.  They have done a good job of programming around it.

And have you guessed that this little episode did "sell" the Ping for me.  Oh, I am sure my area rep had my account flagged, but they did answer the phone fast and did get me taken care of.

It's funny but I went over a year (have to look at the archives to know for sure) and had the same pump.  Was really concerned about having to get it replaced, etc.  Now, since a few recalls and a lot of little glitches, I'm cool with it.  Have it delivered at school.  Keep the old one to make sure I've got the settings and it's what I want.  Drop the old one of at the DHL Headquarters down the road, and I'm good to go.

EzManager - Getting Madder.

Seriously, I just keep getting madder and madder over the EzManager situation.  I've had my pump for 4 months and have not been able to use any of the software features.

The last answer I got from the Ezmanager support guy named Jack was right everything down.  Well, hell, if I wanted to do that, I'd wouldn't have actually BOUGHT Ezmanager.  And if they go back and look, I purchased EzManager LONG before I purchased the pump (yeah, I think that's even on this blog!).

Can you tell I'm mad.

So I called and talked with tech support and said, I either want EzManager by the end of next week, or I want an IR1250 until EzManager ships.

She's going to call me back.

Diabetes - Short-Acting Insulin Isn’t Short for Most Type 2s

Wonder what this means for a pump user?  I actually find that Novolog works pretty well as expected, though Symlin really helps things along. 

Dr. Jean L. Ardilouze, a professor of medicine at University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada, and three colleagues presented “In Obese Subjects with Type 2 Diabetes, Are Short Acting Insulin Analogues That Short?”

Diabetes - Short-Acting Insulin Isn’t Short for Most Type 2s

Still disappointed

No one I've talked to or emailed at Animas has a ship date for the new EzManager.  I'm really hooked on downloading my pump and analyzing what is going on, so not having a full picture is extremely annoying and disappointing.

I'd love to know what the hold up is, because they DID get FDA approval for a new version last month.

Pump disappointment

The new screen is nice.

The new way of doing carb ratios and insulin sensitivity is nice.

But here's why I am disappointed -- while the ad says that the pump stores the blood sugar and carb information on the pump, I have no way of retrieving that information right now!  And that's why I wanted the upgrade.

Hopefully they will have it fixed soon -- I know the FDA approval went through a few weeks ago.

Made in America

I DVR'ed last night episode of Made In America on the Travel Channel.

Before I saw that segment, I thought Made in America was a good series.  I had no idea how good.  Ratzenburger narrated and his narrative was very carefully researched.  He explained what diabetes does, how a pump makes a difference, etc.  One of the best 10 minute segments on Insulin Pumping and Type 1 Diabetes. 

You really need to see it.  It's fascinating how the pumps are made.  You actually get to see the individual processes. 
There were a few points I have problems with.  I seriously doubt that there are "millions" of Smith insulin pumps in use.  I also don't think it is the most portable insulin pump -- I think the Animas is, as its profile is smaller, and it's easier to hide on your body.  I also think they should have pointed out that you still have to poke a whole in your body to get a blood sugar reading.  They made that sound like it was a complete function of the pump and that's the part I have to educate the most about.

I would have gone with a Smith pump IF they had been more responsive.  When I was initially pump shopping.I contacted all the manufacturers.  It was just after the Minimed / waterprrof debacle and since I have a pool they were completely ruled out.  I was very torn between Smith and Animas.  Here's what sold me.  Smith sent me a brochure in the mail.  The Animas rep contacted me via email, arranged for me to meet him in person AND other pumpers at an insulin users groups and was 100% proactive.  Good thing for them, because I've bought two pumps from them (an IR1000 and an IR1250), and all supplies since I've met them.

I don't remember, but I may have told the Smith people I was Type 2 and what insurance and figured it wasn't worth pursuing, but they should remember, some people find pumping important enough to lay out the money for it themselves, even if insurance won't help.

Adjusting Basal Rates

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 1250 Weirdness

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.

I fit this one too.

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.