Medtronic 780G Update!

[Maco]

Medtronic 780G Update.


So my first training session on the 780G was last Thursday. It was a 3hr session to help dial in all your settings & to run through its features, we where also suppose to fit the guardian 3 sensor. Unfortunately due to some delays we never actually got round to fitting the sensor so I fitted it myself on Sunday instead of waiting till Thursday coming (14th of jan). I’ll give you a quick run through of what I’ve found so far.

1. The 780G now uses a Accu Check guide link meter. Like some have said you do need to do a few button presses before it sends your reading to the pump, you then also have to accept the BG reading on your pump. What I have found is that my old Caresens meter & the guardian 3 are always pretty close in readings but the Accu Check is around 1.5/2mmol higher 95% of the time.
   
   
2. From what I can gather the bolus wizard has changed from the 670G, This is my first pump in 11 years so I can’t comment but from what others have said it’s different. If you don’t have a sensor fitted you have to go into the little blood drop icon & enter a BG reading. You then go back into bolus wizard where it’ll show your BG reading, you’ll then enter your carbs and bolus as normal. On the bolus wizard page you don’t have an option to enter a BG, it has to be done in the separate menu.
   
   
3. This one annoys me the most. I fitted my sensor on Sunday, I’ve been told to leave it at least a week before going into automode so for now I’m still in manual mode. The pump still shows me the graph & gives me a SG reading, but in manual mode it doesn’t allow you to use a SG reading for a bolus. So again this means going to the blood drop icon, entering a reading then returning to bolus wizard. Now here is the niggle, every time you enter a BG reading on the 780G it calibrates the sensor with it. There’s no option like the 670G to not use the BG reading as a calibration. So if your felling risky & just enter your SG reading in the BG option your actually going to Calibrate your guardian with a sensor glucose reading, so if it’s out by a few mmol you could go hypo or hyper. I hope that makes sense.
   
   
4. Now I have my guardian 3 set up, I have suspend before low set up with my low limit set at 3.8. My 780G seem to suspend soon as my reading hits 5.4Mmol, now I’m sure it does it because it senses I’m going to drop quite low but it can be annoying. Even if your bloods settle at around 5.0 it’ll still keep you suspended. Now unless you manually restart your pump you cant give a bolus. So today for example my pump was suspended and my reading was 5.0mmol, I was due to have my lunch but couldn’t give a quick bolus wizard as it was suspended. Me being new to the pump I didn’t feel comfortable manually restarting the basal.

All in all I absolutely love being back on pump therapy & I’m sure when I get my ratios dialled in correctly and switch to automode it’ll be fantastic. I’ll update this post when I have more information but for now these are the main things that spring to mind. As we speak I’m 90% I’m target range.

I will say, I’m still new to it all. So some of the things I’ve said could be wrong & others may be able to correct me.

 

[Maco]

Little update from me.

So yesterday I had my second training session, it was suppose to be CGM start up but I went ahead & did that on my own on Sunday. The Medtronic training nurse & my DSN both agreed there was no issues with me going into automode so I went ahead & activated smart guard at around 4pm yesterday at the end of the training session.

I know it’s very early days but honestly it’s absolutely brilliant, the amount of hypos this pump has cut out from MDI is amazing for me. Not just in automode but just having the CGM fitted & the suspend before low active.

Let’s see how today’s goes with a full day of meals for the automode to deal with but at the minute I’m not worried at all.

 

[Maco]

Another little update, thought I’d post as I find things out.

Basically Monday until Saturday evening I follow a strict diet, Saturday night is cheat meal time. Anyway, before I even got to my cheat meal my blood went crazy & shot upto 17. I went to the gym with a reading of 9.0 & it was slowly raising throughout my session, 15 minutes before the end I did a bolus for a protein bar. On the way home I ate it & by the time I got home my SG reading was 16 & my BG reading was 17, checked my automode & it hadnt done a micro basal or an auto correction bolus. Even if it was my gym session that caused the raise I would of thought auto mode would of stepped in.

I’m wondering what’s going to happen late tonight through into the early hours, usually I get a massive raise in my levels after a cheap meal. My Medtronic trainer told me, bolus for what you think and let automode look after you. Well it didn’t do that earlier so let’s see if it does it tonight.

 

[cosmicpoppy]

Wow Marco, very impressive TIR numbers! I’ve only managed 70% so far. Like you, I love this pump.
The only issue I’ve had so far is the ‘Suspend Before Low’ action which seems to only kick in at night. Even when my BG is at 10, not falling rapidly and nowhere near the low range, the SBL is activated. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[Maco]

Wow Marco, very impressive TIR numbers! I’ve only managed 70% so far. Like you, I love this pump.
The only issue I’ve had so far is the ‘Suspend Before Low’ action which seems to only kick in at night. Even when my BG is at 10, not falling rapidly and nowhere near the low range, the SBL is activated. Has anyone else experienced this?

Hi cosmos, are you in manual mode? Im in automode so suspend before low is turned off. Before I switched to auto mine wouldn't suspend until around the 5.4 mark. My trainer told me 'SBL' should only kick in between 5.5-6.0mmol so yours seems to be well out.

 

[Peter03]

Another little update, thought I’d post as I find things out.

Basically Monday until Saturday evening I follow a strict diet, Saturday night is cheat meal time. Anyway, before I even got to my cheat meal my blood went crazy & shot upto 17. I went to the gym with a reading of 9.0 & it was slowly raising throughout my session, 15 minutes before the end I did a bolus for a protein bar. On the way home I ate it & by the time I got home my SG reading was 16 & my BG reading was 17, checked my automode & it hadnt done a micro basal or an auto correction bolus. Even if it was my gym session that caused the raise I would of thought auto mode would of stepped in.

I’m wondering what’s going to happen late tonight through into the early hours, usually I get a massive raise in my levels after a cheap meal. My Medtronic trainer told me, bolus for what you think and let automode look after you. Well it didn’t do that earlier so let’s see if it does it tonight.

How are you getting on with the 780g and cgm, do you find it falls out of auto mode or not, I hope it is all well as I think this pump is the future, although in 10 years I am sure we will think it is old fashioned as technology moves so fast now

 

[Maco]

How are you getting on with the 780g and cgm, do you find it falls out of auto mode or not, I hope it is all well as I think this pump is the future, although in 10 years I am sure we will think it is old fashioned as technology moves so fast now

Pumps brilliant, CGM is absolutely terrible. But obviously the pumps only brilliant with the CGM. Automode is fantastic it does an amazing job keeping you in range, especially at night. I haven’t fallen out of range over night once yet. The problems are with the CGM, last Thursday I had 7 sensors fail the same day. Then had the dreaded sensor updating message sunday, then had it again Tuesday before the sensor went on to fail again.

 

[Peter03]

Thanks for the update, sorry to hear the cgm is playing up, I shall be changing from the libre to the medtronic cgm in the next week or so, I have the pump nurse coming out to me next wensday then the following Wednesday I go into the hospital for a days training then the pump nurse coming out to me the next Wednesday then I have to return to the hospital the next Tuesday so that's my February taken up, just as well I am retired, Hope your cgm,s improve a though the new medtronic senser will be out sometime soon, keep us all updated

 

[donnellysdogs]

I’ve had a Medtronic standalone enlite sensor for 3 years. The last 3 months I have stopped using it. For me over night it shows lows when I’m not. The first 48 hours of use as well is pretty inaccurate.
I had to stop pump after 5 years (2015).
I do have excellent control with 2 basal injections and 2 different quick acting injections..so it’s not even because my levels swing with large differences. I am lean and fairly muscly though and sensors can link frequently or just don’t work well. I got fed up with it alarming saying I was low at night and having to test to check constantly.
My CCG may hospital May swap me to a dexcom instead but of course I guess you have to stay with the medtronic??

 

[Maco]

@Peter03 To be honest out of Libre & Medtronic I couldn’t tell you which is better. Accuracy wise the Medtronic is miles ahead of Libre but Medtronic reliability is poor. I’ve had my transmitter replaced by Medtronic yesterday so let’s see if that does the job. Medtronics new CGM is called Zeus & it’s at least a year away. Even if it got released next month unfortunately for me and you we would need to wait until our warranty runs out a year from now before we got the new Zeus


@donnellysdogs Im funded for Libre & medtronics cgm but if I want to keep the loop between my pump and a CGM I would need to continue with Medtronic guardian 3. Unfortunately the dexcom doesn’t communicate with the 780G.

 

[Peter03]

I am glad to say I don't have warranty problems as I have my pump on a monthly contract, that is what my consultant set up for me 16years ago, so I can change my pump whenever I like but of course I have to wait till a new type of pump is available in France, the 780g is being trialed here but it is not approved yet, I think maybe France had so many problems with the 670g they wants to make sure it works well enough although I am not sure, hopefully the EU will make their own insulin pumps if they.don't already, I found the libre ok but I recalibrate it at least twice a day using xdrip and yes I get lots of false alarms but I would rather have alarms than not although the libre 2 is now available now

 

[Maco]

So new transmitter & sensor both 1 day old, sensor updating alarm once again. Think that's me done with the cgm now especially if this goes on too fail. Dont see the point wasting time & energy with it anymore. Readings perfectly in range and have been for nearly 24hrs and it still goes **** up with BG readings to back it up. Its a shame because auto mode is brilliant but its causing more stress than its worth.

 

[Maco]

HAHAHA! Its failed, im done with it. Cant be bothered with the hassle anymore. Medtronic's cgm is absolutely garbage, its the worse piece of diabetic tech ive ever came across! Can I give this pump back & get a tandem?

 

[Peter03]

Sorry you are having so much trouble, is there another system in the UK that has auto mode, I know there is in France using dexcom I think it's called diabeloop, I think it is available in the UK, Hope they help you out soon

 

[Maco]

Sorry you are having so much trouble, is there another system in the UK that has auto mode, I know there is in France using dexcom I think it's called diabeloop, I think it is available in the UK, Hope they help you out soon

Think most hospitals in the UK use the Tandem T-slim with dexcom but as far as I’m aware I’ll be locked into this pump for at least the next 4 years.

 

[cosmicpoppy]

Hi cosmos, are you in manual mode? Im in automode so suspend before low is turned off. Before I switched to auto mine wouldn't suspend until around the 5.4 mark. My trainer told me 'SBL' should only kick in between 5.5-6.0mmol so yours seems to be well out.

Hi, it’s on auto mode. We’ve discovered the ‘suspend’ action is linked to the Auto Suspend function on the pump and not related to ‘Suspend Before Low’. I’ve changed the Auto Suspend setting (comes under Device Settings) to 6 hours now which works very well.
I initially had problems with the constant alerts so now only use the ‘Alert Before Low’ & ‘Set Change’ alerts. Life is so much better now!