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dexcom 4 and animas vibe any tips

P

pumppimp

Well-Known Member
Messages
246
Location
Aberdeen Scotland
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
Hi everyone,
my pump has just broken and I've contacted the company and they are sending me out a replacement but luckily for me they don't have any 2010, 2012, 2020's left so I get upgraded for free to a vibe yay :D :clap:
I've been having a lot of control issues regarding differnt hormone issues and I think having a cgm for a year or so would help a lot with setting out different basal rates and so on. does anyone else have a vibe plus dexcom cgm?
I'm really interested to find out how accurate it is and how easy it is to put in and get set up? Could anybody give me dimensions of the transmitter, usually I wear a comfort short set which is flat aganist my skin so don't like the idea of having a huge lump under my clothes. How does it hold up aganist pulls and tugs aganist two very excited beagles and being outdoors mountain biking kayaking sometimes I work on fishing trawlers as well would need to be quite robust. The next most important thing is cost from reading other posts I see it's quite expensive has anyone just bought the transmitter and sensors minus the receiver I'm guessing the pump acts as the receiver how much would it cost? Another thing was how easy is it to get one as I don't have a doctor to prescribe it or ok it, do I need that or will they just allow anyone with a pump to have one?
Thanks very much for any help in advance Laura.
 
Hi Laura,

I intend to self fund CGM & contacted the local reps & they agreed to let me have a trial of both the Animas Vibe & Dexcom plus the Medtronicparadigm Veo with their CGM. I got 2 dexcom sensors free & they loaned me a pump & a transmitter, which I give back next Fri. The pump acts as the receiver & the transmitter attaches to the sensor when it's in your body, then you detach it when you take the sensor out & attach it to the next sensor. The sensor & transmitter are small & well attached, though I wore them for 13-15 days & you'll need some tape or a dressing to keep it attached that long (it's supposed to be used for 7 days but works for longer). The transmitter is 3.4cm x 1.8cm, so pretty small, and is about 1cm "deep". It's easy to put in & I found it very accurate, better than the Medtronic so far (though I've only had that in for 2 days & only have 1 sensor).
It's better to have support from your diabetes team at the hospital if possible, but if not you can contact the companies support lines for help & advice. They should be able to give you the contact details for your local rep, who should give you a free trial like I got - you need to know whether it's right for you before you shell out a LOT of cash for it.

It costs £500 for the transmitter & 4 sensors. 4 sensors then cost £46.50 each if you get them through Animas - Chas C self funds a Dexcom stand alone CGM & they cost more. Like I said, they last about 2 weeks, can be longer I believe, so you're talking about£100/month. The transmitter can't be recharged & lasts at least 6months, should be longer but don't know how much longer. A user who had it since Aug 12 said his lasted 7months, the Animas rep said 12months for hers - then you have to buy a new one.

I intend to use it to improve control around exercise & to find out what different foods & meals do to my glucose levels. I've found out from the use I've had that all cereals & bread cause a fast rise & short lived high then a rapid fall, so have changed my breakfasts to things that cause a slower & less severe rise. So would intend to just buy the transmitter once & use it until it dies, however long that is.
 
Hi Laura

My son has had the Animas Vibe since last November. He was actually about to get the 2020 when the Vibe was approved and as his diabetes team knew we wanted to continue to use a CGM (self funded) they let us change to the Vibe. His first pump so can't really compare it to anything. Just started using the CGM part of the Vibe in the last month (delay was due to finishing off 7+sensors first and then the need to get approval from his specialist to use the vibe CGM as he is under 18 therefore animas will not sell us sensors direct).

We are really happy with the insulin pump side of things (son LOVES it) but the CGM side has not been as good as we hoped.

Previously used the Dexcom 7+ and we had a system set up to hear the alarms (dex in a bowl of coins with a noise activated baby toy nearby and a baby monitor in room if anyone is looking for ideas!) however the set of beeps with the vibrate that is the CGM alarm on the vibe is almost inaudible even when set high when you are sleeping (and it is hidden under duvet). We have even tried having our son in the same bed as one of us whilst we are looking for a solution and both my husband and I have slept through the alarm as well (generally I am a fairly light sleeper unless I am exhausted).

Rather annoyed to be honest as when we were looking to see if the vibe was an option (and given we knew about the issue with hearing dexcom alarms on the 7+) we specifically asked to hear the vibe alarm. However, it appears that the cgm alarms are not the same ones that you hear if there is an issue with the insulin pump side of things (at least we have not found an option to allow them to be the same but if anyone has we would love to hear from you).

Have contacted Animas and Dexcom to see if they have any suggestions to address issue - will update if we have any joy.

On the positive side of things we have noticed that the G4 is more accurate than the 7+ with a HUGE reduction in the dreaded ??? error message. Still no alarm for ??? though! The vibe is waterproof and can be worn swimming. No significant change noted with sensor insertion (son doesn't notice any difference even if it is reported to be smaller), generally we have not tried to go over the 7 days so can't really comment on how well they will last past 7 days.

Also if its your first CGM it is worth noting it has really helped dirve down ours sons Hb1ac

Hope this helps.
 
I agree with sleepless about the alarms - the Medtronic CGM alarms woke me at night but I slept right through the Animas ones. They did wake my husband though, so he woke me. The Medtronic system just lacked the accuracy of the Animas though, and as Animas/Dexcom costs less & I'll be self funding, that's what I intend to go for.
 
Thanks for your replies,
I had thought the alarms would be just as loud as the normal pump but I don't think that will be too much of a problem for me both my beagles howl whenever the phone rings the door bell goes or my pump alarms I don't tend to have many problems throughout the night. I'm really looking forward to getting the cgm I just have to save up some pennies and give it a trial as well. Can I ask do you have to use the automatic insertion device thingys or can you just manually insert like sets?
Laura
 
Laura

We always use the insertion device and given we are self funding the cgm I would be loathe to try and insert without the device even if it was possible as it would increase the risk of it not working.

As promised for anyone that is interested an update on alarm problems.

Animas were nice enough on the phone but could not offer any assistance on increasing CGM alarm volume or duration- they recommended checking on our son every couple of hours!! My username might be sleepless but I do not think setting my alarm to go off every 2 hours during the night is a healthly daily routine. Think if I turned up to work like a zombie everyday my boss might object!

Dexcom did not even reply. We had asked them if buying the G4 standalone unit would help. Ie using that to pick up the signal from the animas G4 pump sensor (and using the old dex 7 kind of set up) previous advice from advanced therapeutics was that you could not use the standalone g4 sensors with the vibe pump as they were slightly different but we were not sure if that restriction was one way.

ATM we are slowly developing a workaround using an old android phone. We found a phone app that plays a tune at full volume when it hears a whistle (its actually supposed to help you find your phone if you have lost it like a whistle key finder). If set on sensitive it will go off for the animas pump cgm alarm but it also gives some false alarms sometimes when our son tosses and turns so not perfect. Currently looking at ways of tweaking this system (got an order awaiting delivery for a tiny microphone which can go into phone direct and then be placed near to the pump hopefully this will mean we can turn down the application sensitivity to see if this will reduce the false alarms. Also looking to see if there is alternative apps on the market- failing that will get the other half to write one!!).

I am sure we will find a solution eventually because fundamentally we know that the CGM does help our sons diabetes control and does identify hypo's / hypers earlier than blood tests (but like many of my old school reports the Vibes report card reads "could do better!!").
 
Further update on hearing (or not hearing) the dexcom alarm for anyone interested.

We have downloaded an android application - "sentector" too help us overcome the low alert noise. This application can be trained to listen for a specific noise and when it hears that noise it sends an email. It has worked wonderfully for us (especially since our son has just had a bug that has played havoc with his blood sugars). Our setup is relatively simple and uses the following:-

1. Spare andriod device- we had an old phone (with no sim) but with charger as if you have the program running overnight it eats battery so best to have it plugged in.

2. Sentector software on above device (software free on play store - check its compatible with your android version).

3. You need a recording of whatever noise you want to monitor for (obviously we are monitoring our sons vibe but it could be used for other CGMs as I know we struggled with the dexcom but to a lesser extent than the vibe). This recording is used to set up and calibrate the sentector software. I used my phone to capture the noise and then trimmed the file so that it was only the alarm noise on the file. (Need recording as you need to replay tune a number of times during set up and the vibe alarms are not frequent enough)

We also use the above recording as a check at night to make sure everything is running before bed. We have found the software so sensitive that it can sit on our sons bedside table and hear the alarm and let us know if it goes off (actually it heard the alarm when I was checking the tune in the room next door!! Software does give a repeated error in its log saying that background noise is to high but I think that this is due to the sensitivity being set so high. However when the alarm goes off it hears it despite the error messages so we just ignore the errors (as you only see them if you look at the log).

4. Email address. You can use the same email address to send the emails and recieve them. We have a specific account set up for our sons alarms.

5. Second andriod device (in our case my mobile) which also has wi-fi connection or data enabled. This is the device that actually checks your alarm email account and alerts you to the issue. We have my mobile set up so that when it recieves an email in our alarm email account it plays an alert tune to advise me of new email (this setup means that I do not get woken for the junk email that I get in my regular account!!).

How it works:
Despite the above making it sound more complicated once setup when our son goes to bed we simply put the old phone on his bedside table. Plug it in (or make sure battery fully charged). Switch on sentector and switch on the alarm. Leave this phone running (it doesn't matter if the display goes into sleep mode the software is still runnning). I then make sure I have my mobile in my hearing distance. If his alarm goes of I get an alert on my mobile and I can deal with it.

Pros-
We can sleep easier knowing that alarms will be flagged.
Could actually use the system when you are out and about (if you use mobile data) so that kids can play without you hovering and asking them what the levels are!
In theory you could use it for single people living alone ( as nothing to stop the email being sent to parents/ loved ones in another house).
We haven't recieved any false alarms to date (although it will alert once after around 30 mins i think if it detects it is not plugged in). However would say that once our kids are in bed we don't exactly have lots of music on in our house.
Sentector software currently free.

Cons
Software appears to eat phone battery.
If email system is down the software has no back-up option (ie it won't text or call anyone or play a loud pitch noise from the monitoring device). Software is fairly new though so maybe the developers will add this in future updates (if the developers of sentector ever read this post- thankyou for your software and please see above and note that I would gladly pay for a premium version if it had this ability !!).

Anyway I hope this post helps someone else.
 
Dear Laura,
my son was diagnosed 3,5 years ago. Now he is 10. For 2,5 years he is on Medronic Veo pump with CGM. Two months ago we bought Dexcom G4 as separate CGM system (stoped to use Medtronic CGM sensors). The difference is HUGE. Dexcom almost always agree with Glucometer (differences like 5-10). Sometimes more like 40-50 but very rar. On Medtronic very rar agree to glucometer almost always differences of 30-50, from time to time 100-150. So I really reccomend Dexcom G4. ALSO Dexcom after 7 days you can run again for next 7 days. Medtronic max 6 days, sometimes less.
 
As mentioned by Vicki I'm self funding the G4, in my opinion its one of the best thing's so far invented for IDD since I became one in 1970.

I use it with its own receiver (and Combo Pump), so I can put the receiver away out of hearing if the alarms are driving me nuts e.g. I have chosen to eat a meal with fast acting and high carbs. Not sure how I'd deal with this if it was combined as in the Vibe - but sure I'd get used to it.

Cost is cheaper via Animas for the G4 sensors, mine last 3-4 wks before replacement but you have to reset them every week.
I'm on second Transmitter, first lasted 13 months.

I'm a white water kayaker in my spare time and the pump plus CGM are brilliant for sports management of BG's.
 
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