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Pump (and Life) Upgrade

kitedoc said:
Fantastic, Mark. That is Australia post (i assume) service for you!!
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Well the card said not to collect until the 27th... I was prepared to "speak to the manager". Have set it up and just waiting for the sensor to warm up so I can calibrate. Yup Oz Post
 
Hi @aphex2k, I hope you had a restful Xmas with the pump doing its thing again.
Of course the downside of the CGM is that one cannot get away with sneaking a Xmas food snack!!!
 
kitedoc said:
Of course the downside of the CGM is that one cannot get away with sneaking a Xmas food snack!!!
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Why not?
I have been snacking and blousing and checking my BG with my Libre and not been too high all Christmas which has included two Christmas dinners and a week with the outlaws who have no clue of the difference between a carb and a key ring.
 
I would have thought thats what CGM was for too..... it makes christmas easier to handle....
 
helensaramay said:
Why not?
I have been snacking and blousing and checking my BG with my Libre and not been too high all Christmas which has included two Christmas dinners and a week with the outlaws who have no clue of the difference between a carb and a key ring.
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Ha! There is no limit to the ingenuity of the us, diabetics to find a way to keep 'food indiscretions' covered most of the time!!
I guess CGM makes it more challenging!!!
 
Well it certainly makes you more aware... I sneaked a little bit of Christmas pudding and custard last night. Yes, I know I may as well pour raw sugar down my neck... But I like Christmas pudding! A couple of correction doses needed before I went to bed!

So nice to be back on the pump and cgm though. Just called the police station and nothing has been handed in so I well and truly lost it. Major lesson learned - trust your gut. I hesitated for a second when I put it on the roof and didn't react to my instinct.
 
Getting annoyed at Medtronic's inability to steadily supply sensors! Despite being part of the subscription I was constantly ringing them to say I was down to my last one. Anyway, they sent me 4 individual spares, plus the box of 5 I was due, which came last week. Now I've just got an email to say another 5 are being sent out. Makes no sense but their (Aus) supplies dept doesn't seem to communicate with the rest of the organisation, like normal people do. So I'm either panicking on the last sensor, or panicking as I've got more sensors than I need and some will probably expire before even used! (I will get them to replace the ones that do expire until I've caught up though - at $75 a pop it's not what I'd class as a disgardable item!)
 
Hi aphex2k. Another fellow Aussie on a Medtronic pump after waiting 22 years. So far I have had it on since March ‘18 and it has done wonders for my control. Shift working I have several different basal patterns and every now and then they need a little tweak.
I was looking for some info on cgm, I know what it is but can’t afford to use it so I was wondering if private health covered any of the gap? With Bupa health fund so maybe? I’d love to start cgm to make full use of the pump but until they make it cheaper it’s out of reach unfortunately.
 
Hey buddy. I'm with Medibank. I got the pump paid for but I pay for the cgm. It's part of a subscription deal and it's 250 per month. The sensors last 6 days and you get a box of 5 sent. Essentially 50 bucks a sensor. Plus they send you the transmitter as part of the deal and they're a grand a pop. Might be worth asking your diabetic team if your health fund can assist with some of the cost. I doubt they will, but worth a shot. I don't think Medibank do, but I switched from hbf to them to find the pump (which I lost a few weeks back.... Don't ask. Now paying an additional 180 per month for a rental pump. FML!)

Where are you based? Give us a shout if I can help. Having had the pump and cgm, the 2 weeks I had without it was pretty ****. Hypos every night.
 
Yeah I was reading about your luck earlier up the post. Gees, not good at all, but at the same time it’s the same luck that I’d have....
I didn’t think private health would cover it but thought maybe someone had found a loophole. I see a lot of people saying they are sticking with the libre as it’s cheaper but from what I can see it’s $92.50 per sensor with each sensor lasting max 14 days. So it’s not that much cheaper and it’s not linked to the pump.
I was just reading the libre site and the link to the federal government health page and it reads that cgm is available to all type 1’s under the age of 21. It then goes on to say that from March 1st, the Government will include the FreeStyle Libre flash glucose monitoring system on the list of available CGM products subsidised under the scheme, subject to price negotiations with the product sponsor. Is that for everyone or just the children/young adults again?
 
Not sure how good another CGM would be - I've got the Medtronic pump and their CGM as it works together. When my BSL drops it alerts me it's dropping. If I don't do anything and it goes into hypo mode, it stops giving insulin. There's a graph on the pump so I can see the trends of highs and lows and you can head them off before they get too serious. Not sure if you can connect say a Libre to the pump so you'd lose some of the functionality / features.

Combined costs for me, yes expensive (worse now I'm factoring in another 180 for the loan pump) as well as consumables (cannula, reservoirs, insulin, test strips) and the sensors each month. It ain't cheap. But...it means a better quality of life and a better prognosis overall. I think it's worth it. At least they can find a cure!
 
No the libre definitely doesn’t connect to the 640g, so you would think the cgm would be the only way to go. Reading other posts though, a lot of thumbs down for the cgm in regards to connectivity problems.
My hypos aren’t severe or often so I’m not really worried about the basal suspend at the moment. I went through that for the first 5 months as a pump user (I’m sure my a1c was 3.0!) but we dialled the dosage way back and now I run a little on the high side. This is apparently to get my hypo awareness back to where it should be. That and the fact I do so many various tasks (shift work, desk work, mechanical, cattle property work), means I have a lot of different basal patterns. So trying to dial in each pattern seems to take forever! So far I have the night shift pattern and the at home with the wife and kids playing pattern pretty well perfect. Work and any manual labour patterns we are getting closer to but for now it’s live on the high side and work it out from 6-8 tests per day without cgm. PS, I am located in north Qld as I forgot to say that before.
 
Hi @justin 04, I am on a Tandem Pump in Adelaide.
I believe that shortly pregnant women in Oz will be subsidised for use of CGM - not that that helps you, @aphex2k or me !!
To learn more about the accuracy of the Libre, you could search some of the threads via the Forum question box top right of the Forum page.
But Tim2000s has a site, diabettech.com where he has reports on extensive testing and comparisons of CGMs including use of various apps with the Libre. To note though that the new model Libre (not sure when will be here) may not work with these apps.
I have found CGM (Dexcom in my case) too pricey at present and rely on finger pricks. The newish Contour meters that pharmacies have been giving away have a tested error rate of 5% which is better than all other meters out there (at least from tests in 2017). Hope that helps. :):):):)
 
Thanks @kitedoc for the info. I have a contour next link 2.4 which was supplied with the 640g and it is a great little tester. I wasn’t sure on the accuracy until now though cheers. I’d always been an accu-chek man until the pump.
The rep when I had my pump fitted in March tried to sell the cgm to me but it wasn’t feasible at the time. We then had the worst drought recorded in our town since ‘63/64 so that tightened the purse strings further. It’s not going to be affordable in the foreseeable future either.
Yeah pregnant women and people who have concessional status have been added so in 10 years they might add us!
My endo told me at my recent appt that the 670g will be available in the future, totally closed loop. Won’t that be an expensive bit of kit to run!
 
You know, for a $10k pump.... The bloody belt clip is utter garbage. Constantly having to push in the hinge pin on the clip. And still not heard back from Medtronic as to why the silicone case is 3x the price here in Australia compared to US priced.
 
aphex2k said:
You know, for a $10k pump.... The bloody belt clip is utter garbage. Constantly having to push in the hinge pin on the clip. And still not heard back from Medtronic as to why the silicone case is 3x the price here in Australia compared to US priced.
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? because they have to float them here all the way from USA on a silicone-based raft. Perhaps some cases are used as repair patches and that increases the price of the overall batch. Any other explanation will probably make as much sense !!
The Animas Vibe has a belt clip where a tiny screw gradually worked loose and the clip could suddenly come apart. The screw could not be retightened and every form of epoxy glue known to man ultimately failed.
The other thing was that one time the belt clip where it slotted into a groove on the pump case got stuck. It took the proverbial team of ten to get them apart. It turned out that as I was frequently at the beach to kite fly some salt crystals had formed in the groove and caused the sticking . One member of the 'team' thought to give the case a rinse in water - problem solved !!
 
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