I desperately need a new pump. The new Medtronic pump is expected to be released in Europe in April 2015 (but not until April 2016 for those in the USA - ouch!). More info here: http://diatribe.org/issues/65/new-now-next/2
I currently have an Animas Ping, and I am torn between just getting the Animas Vibe and waiting a few months to learn more about the new Medtronic pump. I thought about the current Medtronic pump, but I just can’t downgrade from my beautiful color screen to that calculator-looking thing.
Should I just suck it up and wait the extra 3-4 months for a new pump? Do you guys think the new Medtronic pump will be worth the wait?
I do not know much about the Animas pumps as I have always been a Medtronic user, I currently use the 530G. There is a group on Facebook, Medtronic Insulin Pump, where one of the members has a son who has received the new pump. The members are generally very friendly, so I am sure you may be able to ask her how she finds the 640G.
Here’s my experience/opinion. I live in the US and got the Minimed 530G when it came out a little over a year ago, which is the predecessor to the 640G. It’s claim to fame is that it suspends when low, while the 640G suspends when a low is predicted. In my experience, the low suspend feature is ONLY remotely useful at night if you go low and do not wake up. Think about it–if you’re low and you eat something, you can feel better in about 5-10 minutes. Do you know how long it takes for your BG to rise just by suspending your pump? When the 530G suspends, it shuts off your basal for 2 hours before turning back on. If you’re awake, you certainly don’t want to feel low for 2+ hours while the basal changes kick in. That’s why I say the only reason this helps is if you sleep through the low (and all the blaring alarms of a low suspend on the pump). The other problem I’ve run into is let’s say your pump suspends and you wake up an hour into the 2-hour suspension and treat your low. You will rebound way more than you anticipated because you cut your basal off for an hour AND ate a snack. For these reasons, the only time I turn on the low suspend feature is at night when my husband is out of town and I’m sleeping alone. Otherwise, I really don’t use it.
Don’t get me wrong–it is fantastic to see SOMEONE making strides toward a real artificial pancreas and putting it on the market. However, I think Minimed it taking baby steps toward that end goal (and releasing/selling each step along the way) and in the end another company will come out with the full blown product and take advantage of the leg work Minimed did to get all of the FDA approvals along the way (or whatever agency approves this stuff in other countries).
I have no experience with Animas/Dexcom so I can’t comment on the Vibe at all. Despite my comments above, I’ve been a MM customer for 15 years and am happy with them. However, the in my opinion so far the low suspend feature is not all that great. Maybe the predictive low suspend would work better? I did have one instance in the past year where I did sleep through a bad low and was grateful for the low suspend feature, but these are rare occurrences for me. As I once read on another blog about this pump, low suspend “is annoying until it saves your life”.
Thanks for the advice to check FB, @amapelli83. I will check that out.
Otherwise, I actually do not even have a CGM, and do not plan on getting one anytime in the near future. I just want a pump that is as user-friendly and sleek as possible, and the new Medtronic 640G looks like it will be 10000x better looking than the old one (obviously that is not all that matters, but you know…).