MiniMed 640....help

[Deleted member 83869]

Hello

Was wondering if anyone could help, I received my MiniMed 2 days ago...but I am not due to start on it until the 1st of December or hopefully sooner if an appointment comes up! Anyhow, my Consultant wants me to get the CareLink USB, I have asked Medtronic and they said it's my contour meter, but I am sure that is not right because my consultant showed me what the usb looks like! Can anyone help me please??

 

[Gaz-M]

I,m sure its the contour next link, https://www.diabetes.bayer.co.uk/pr...r-next-link-and-next-link-24-meters/overview/

 

[Deleted member 83869]

Ahhhh I will check with my Consultant...it's all so confusing!

I just found the picture of what I am after!

 

[Gaz-M]

I am not on a pump as of yet but Ive looked at the 640, Animas and the insight and I have not seen one of those you posted and when I saw my DSN she said the 640 uses the link meter

 

[Deleted member 83869]

That's for the Medtronic not to worry il just have to talk to my consultant

 

[irrationalJohn]

Anyhow, my Consultant wants me to get the CareLink USB, I have asked Medtronic and they said it's my contour meter, but I am sure that is not right because my consultant showed me what the usb looks like!

The truth is that you can use either device to connect to a computer and upload the results from your pump to Medtronic's database. You consultant is apparently simply clueless. So shocking and unexpected, no?

What I suggest you do first is create and setup your Carelink account. You should be able to do all of this even though you are not actually pumping with your 640G. Just have it and the Contour Next Link 2.4 which you should have received with the 640G at hand so you can use them.

In the US I open CareLink® Personal Therapy Management Software for Diabetes in my browser. The Carelink web site needs to use Java so I would recommend using a browser such as FireFox which will support this. If you haven't already, create and setup an account.

If you haven't already powered up your 640G, do so and then try to upload it. It shouldn't matter that you aren't using it and that there isn't much data to upload and doing this will give you some practice and possibly questions that you can ask before you need to do the upload.

As you go through the upload steps in the Carelink software, you should come to a page like the one shown in the pic below. Notice that you can use either your BG meter or the Carelink USB device to upload. Since Medtronic has enabled their "linked" BG meters to support the upload they prefer to have people use that rather then futz around sending them the separate Carelink USB dongle. (I am guessing).

 

[fairylights]

I have the contour next link meter - as in the picture above the opposite end to where you put the test strip has a cap that comes off and is a usb, once you have set this up to link to your pump you can use it to download to the carelink site.

 

[irrationalJohn]

once you have set this up to link to your pump you can use it to download to the carelink site.

"download" "upload", potato potahto.

Thanks for pointing out you have to pull the cap off the Contour BG meter to access the USB connector. I should have remembered to mention that, but obviously did not.

I also forgot to mention that before you can transfer your pump's data to a computer using the Contour BG meter you will need to have setup the 640G to communicate with the meter. To do this you can probably either call Medtronic and have them walk you through it or get help from your Consultant's staff (I doubt he actually does this sort of thing himself) or take a look at this link I found to instructions on the Bayer website.
How to link the CONTOUR®NEXT LINK 2.4 meter to the NEW MiniMed® 640G pump

I have also included a screenshot of the instructions below in case the link to them does not work for you.

 

[Deleted member 83869]

Thank you both for your replies I'm seeing my consultant Friday so will see what she has to say lol! I signed up to the Carelink website today but didn't know what else to do ha! Our pc at home is on the blink so need to get that fixed! Xx

 

[irrationalJohn]

Thank you both for your replies I'm seeing my consultant Friday so will see what she has to say lol!

My guess is that she will hand it over to whomever on her staff/organization deals which such things.

Doctors tend to prioritize their time zealously. Unless she's had some extraordinary reason to do so, she has probably never come closer to uploading data to Carelink than watching someone else do it. And even just watching someone else do it would probably have seemed to her to be a less special use of her time.

Try to remember to take the details of your Carelink account with you for your appointment. It may not come up at all, but if someone wants to set up the linkage between the account the doctor uses and your Carelink account I think you would need at least the username of the account you created. If it were me I'd have both my userid and password in case they wanted to log on to the account for some arcane, unanticipated reason.

Another suggestion is that if it's not too much hassle to bring the 640G and Contour BG meter, then you might be able to get someone to set it up for you.

On the other hand, I don't know how the bureaucracy of your NHS tends to work. I'm also not very good at knowing when and what help will be proffered since I tend to always do this sort of thing on my own anyway.

 

[Deleted member 83869]

Well she is already on the case to try and get me an appointment much sooner than 1st December with a Medtronic rep to get me connected, I could do it myself but its way too complicating and different to my accuchek lol!! I don't fault her though she is the best consultant I have ever had in the 8 years of being diabetic and I have only had her for about a month! I have never had so much care its odd ha but Its the care I should have been getting all of these years...I think

 

[irrationalJohn]

I don't fault her though she is the best consultant I have ever had in the 8 years of being diabetic and I have only had her for about a month!

I don't fault her either. I'm just sayin' that she's very very likely going to delegate the actual setup details to someone else because she most likely considers that a really poor use of her time.

I can understand why it might look complicated to you but it's not. It's just less familiar and so it seems that way. After you've been given some instruction & spent some time with the 640G your perspective could change.

In the US Medtronic has online courses they ask people to complete before they visit with the rep to be taught. I would suggest doing that if it is possible for you. I find that if I've gone through the material beforehand then whatever the rep is trying to tell me is more likely to "stick". It's also easier to get a better idea of what makes less sense to you and want to ask about if you've gone through the online presentation.

 

[Deleted member 83869]

I don't fault her either. I'm just sayin' that she's very very likely going to delegate the actual setup details to someone else because she most likely considers that a really poor use of her time.

I can understand why it might look complicated to you but it's not. It's just less familiar and so it seems that way. After you've been given some instruction & spent some time with the 640G your perspective could change.

In the US Medtronic has online courses they ask people to complete before they visit with the rep to be taught. I would suggest doing that if it is possible for you. I find that if I've gone through the material beforehand then whatever the rep is trying to tell me is more likely to "stick". It's also easier to get a better idea of what makes less sense to you and want to ask about if you've gone through the online presentation.

I need to get my computer fixed lol! Just so impatient lol!

 

[Spicey245]

Strangly, I have to connect my Carelink Nextlink 2.4 bg monitor via the lead that came with it rather than just plugging it directly into my laptop for it to work! Very strange!

 

[irrationalJohn]

I have to connect my Carelink Nextlink 2.4 bg monitor via the lead that came with it rather than just plugging it directly into my laptop for it to work!

Could you post a pic of the connectors on the cable you are talking about.

The first thing that comes to mind is that this is simply a matter of how much room there is around the USB ports on your laptop. Sometimes when the USB device is too wide, as the Contour Next Link 2.4 certainly could be, then one need to use a short connector cable to have enough room for the plugs to fit. Is that perhaps what is happening for you?

 

[Spicey245]

This is the lead that came with my Contour Nextlink 2.4.

 

[irrationalJohn]

This is the lead that came with my Contour Nextlink 2.4

That's not so much a "lead" as a USB 2.0 extension cable.

If you need to use it to connect your meter to your laptop than the problem is more about the size of your meter relative to how much space there is around the USB connector port on your laptop than needing to use the cable. In other words, the meter is too "big" in some way to properly fit into the laptop's connector. But since the connector on the extension cable is smaller, it will make a proper connection so using it allows the meter to be connected to your laptop.

With another computer which has more space around the ports I don't think you would need the cable and could just plug the meter directly into the port. That's what I do with my Contour Next Link.

For whatever it's worth, that cable really is just a generic extension cable. It can be used to extend any USB 2.0 cable or device if you need to. I am currently using one to extend the cable I use to charge my iPad mini 2. Another common use, at least in the past, was to make it easier to access the rear port on a desktop computer. You'd plug one end into the back and then bring the extension end around to the front where it was easier to reach.

Of course, I'm not sure how many people use "desktop" computers any longer.

Just for the heck of it and to maybe avoid someone paying a premium for one of these things if they need it but have lost it, here's a link to the same thing on US website. Sorry I don't know what the equivalent would be in the UK.
1.5ft USB 2.0 A Male to A Female Extension

 

[Spicey245]

I hear what you are saying about the Contour being too large but how come I can plug it straight into laptop and download all the data off the Contour Nextlink but it won't download my pump data unless it's plugged in using the cable? :-/ Unless the website was down when I tried to do it (which is a possibility). I will try it again without the lead and see how I get on.

 

[irrationalJohn]

how come I can plug it straight into laptop and download all the data off the Contour Nextlink but it won't download my pump data unless it's plugged in using the cable?

I don't actually know, of course. Two wild ass guesses come to mind.

First, possibly the internals of the meter are defective? But this is unlikely and can probably be ruled out if you are able to transmit a BG result from the meter to the pump.

Another possibility is that the pump may not have been "close enough" to the meter for the radio connection between the two to work properly. Or the connection may have been disrupted by interference from some other device like a microwave or cordless phone.

If you try it again, put the pump close to the meter when it is plugged into your laptop and see if that makes a difference.

 

[Spicey245]

I had the pump positioned right next to it. I still think there was a problem with the Carelink website when I tried the first time. Haven't had chance to test it tonight but will try tomorrow night if I get a spare minute. Thanks for your suggestions though, much appreciated!