Living with Diabetes and Lapband

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.

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.

I am really upset with Animas right now.  The good news for them, is that I hate Minimed and Smith is out of network, but if I were getting a new pump today, I wouldn't be happy buying from them.

Here's the deal.  When I got my IR1250 (back when they first shipped), they had a software issue in the food database and had to recall the pump.

So I upgraded to the IR2020 last spring when I could get the chance.  I believe I was the first upgrade, if not, certainly one of the first.

However, EzManager doesn't work with the IR2020, so every since I got it, I've been stuck with their food database.  Plus I haven't been able to upload data.  Okay, I can get bolus history and basal history, but I can't upload and save pump settings, etc.  Nor do I have it in hard copy to double check. 

Every time I've asked they have said they were shipping soon.  In June I called and they said July.  I finally called yesterday and now they at least gave a date, August 1.

Yeah, two weeks away.  I really wish they had told me when they shipped the pump that EzManager wasn't ready.  I am pretty sure I would have said -- fine, wait and ship the pump when the software ready.  In fact, I asked that they switch pumps until the software was ready yesterday and they refused. 

If I don't see it on August 1st, I think I'm going to start getting real hard to get along with.

Just saw the April 510(k)s from the FDA web site.  Apparently there is a new version of Ezmanager -- called EzManager Max.  Unfortunately the documentation does not mention using Palm.  Or Pocket OS.

I've set up Performancing for Firefox.  It's pretty cool.  Supposedly you can add a blog entry by pressing F8.

And it works!  See http://www.Performancing.com and look for Performancing Firefox.  I've very pleased so far.

Except that it publishes multiple versions when you update after publishing -- I'll delete the other stuff in a moment.

I've been playing with Freestyle's, LifeScan and Accu-Chek's downloading software.

First, be aware that the Freestyle download software was discontinued. I have the orginal Connect and use it on a regular basis. I did call their 1-800 number and they are sending me new software today. When it arrives, I'll let you know what I got.

Each of the programs are easy to install and easy to operate. I like the Accu-Chek because it uses the same IR port as my pump. I use a serial to usb converter for the Freestyle and Lifescan meters. All download equally well, though the serial port method seems faster (and makes sense).

Each of the programs allow you to export your data to CSV (comma delimited file), that can be opened with Excel. I delete the extra data, and resave the file and import it into EzManager. I've got a macro written for Freestyle Connect.

Freestyle provides the cable and software for free, but you have to order it. Accu-Chek charges for their software ($29.99 + shipping). Lifescan is a free download, but you have to buy their cable also $29.99 plus shipping. By the way, at least one of the online people charge for the software, but you can get it from the website for free.

So Freestyle is cheaper on the cable and software BUT their strips are a high co-pay for me. FYI: I got my cable for free when I tried a UltaSmart Meter, so I've only paid for the Accu-Chek software.

Yes, I'm moving more and more towards going to Activa when my current strips run out -- about three months from now.

I am seriously thinking of switching to the Aviva meter. Mainly because the co-pay is considerably cheaper than the Freestyle strips, and partly because Freestyle is paired with two pumps I don't care for. Also, my last two "visits" with customer service on the phone left an off taste.

One of my issues with the Aviva meter, was the non-ability to download, which you now can. I sprung for the $29.95 for the Compass software, which I am impressed with. It was easy to load and works well.

The good news, is that the IR port that came with my pump works just fine with the Aviva meter -- one of the things I was hoping for. I didn't want to have to deal with another peripheral.

I sure wish the meter would work directly with EzManager and my Treo, but that's just hoping for too much.

And yeah, Roche is Distronic -- or should I say Roche bought Distronic -- but I kinda of like the Roche pump, too bad they have never been able to sell one in the US.

I'm going to snag one of each of the Lifescan meters from my CDE on Tuesday, try each of them for a couple of days and decide which I'm ultimately going to switch too.

All of them sadly, take up more purse space (and pocket space) than the Flash.

I want to talk to my ob/gyn about this form of Depo, so I used the blogger function to email the address to myself. I downloaded the email to my Treo, and now I have the links to show him when I get to the office. I'll just pull them down while I am waiting.

The Well-Timed Period: Depo subQ: Birth Control & Endometriosis

Depo subQ: Birth Control & Endometriosis

Haven't look at this much, but I read an notice about this that the 1.3 version does something they call Insulin Activity Feature.

That's an Insulin On Board feature for those of us who are Animas users. I neededt this.

UTS Diabetes Palm PDA software : from Pilot to Tungsten and Treo

UTS Diabetes Palm PDA software

The Freestyle folks have some very nice updated software on their website. It's a downloadable version of Copilot. It has a Java look and feel (most of the windows seem Java API like -- don't worry, that was geek talk).

The graphs are very readable, and it allows you to merge records from several different meters and produce a report. You can also import data from the Cozmonitor program. If I can figure out how to create exported data from Ezmanager without too much brain power, I might because the EzManager reports can be difficult to read.

Might be a good summer project.

Anyway, website is http://www.therasense.com follow the CoPilot links.

Yeah, can't sleep either.