What is the Best Pump?

[Why_Me]

Want to change to a pump. What's the best one in your opinion.

I do a fair amount of sport, travel a lot for work (long and short haul) and I'd like it to be able to read Blood Sugars if possible.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

 

[CarbsRok]

Want to change to a pump. What's the best one in your opinion.

I do a fair amount of sport, travel a lot for work (long and short haul) and I'd like it to be able to read Blood Sugars if possible.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

You have two choices then
Medtronic or Animas as both have CGM capability. You have to pay for the sensors and transmitter though.

 

[xAoifex]

Both the animas and the medtronic have + and - The animas uses dexcom sensors which appear to be more cost effective as you can keep them going for ages but it is an older pump (?rumours of a new one in the future) The Medtronic 640g is a bit all singing and dancing but the sensors only last 6 days which makes it prohibitive for most people to have full time cgm. best to read up on both and if you can ask your dsn for a look at both and have a little play

 

[ElyDave]

I'm happy with the insight, but no cgm

 

[irrationalJohn]

Want to change to a pump. What's the best one in your opinion.

The "best" pump is the one which best fits in with your preferences and your lifestyle. Since these things differ from person to person to person, there is no way to actually answer your question as you asked it.

Folks can tell you what their experience was with different pumps or with the two main competing CGMs (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) at the moment, Medtronic Enlite and Dexcom G4. But in the end you have to decide what, if anything, might work for you.

So ... first, do you have any general questions about using an insulin pump or have you already looked into that?

As far as CGM goes, Medtronic and Dexcom have approached it somewhat differently. Since Medtronic is first of all a manufacturer of insulin pumps, the approach which apparently seemed most natural to their engineers was to integrate their CGM monitoring into their pumps.

My understanding is that CGM is Dexcom's only business so they have a separate monitor device which displays the SG (Sensor Glucose) results from the glucose sensor you insert under your skin.

The point I am trying to make here is that you can only use Medtronic's CGM with a Medtronic pump. However, you can use Dexcom's CGM with any company's pump, including Medtronic. The catch is that the pump and CGM will not be integrated. Essentially that means you'll have to carry a separate monitoring device in addition to the pump, but it also means that the reports generated from the data from your pump will not auto-magically include the results from your glucose sensor.

I could go on ... and on and on and on ... but before doing so, I'll wait for some feedback as to whether or not any of my ramblings are of use.

 

[CarbsRok]

My understanding is that CGM is Dexcom's only business so they have a separate monitor device which displays the SG (Sensor Glucose) results from the glucose sensor you insert under your skin

The animas vibe insulin pump has the receiver built into it for the Dexcom transmitter and sensors.

 

[noblehead]

I'd imagine there's pro's & con's with each and every one of them, @Why_Me have a look at Input for more information on pumps and CGM's:

http://www.inputdiabetes.org.uk/

 

[irrationalJohn]

The animas vibe insulin pump has the receiver built into it for the Dexcom transmitter and sensors.

Yes, but there are a number of footnotes to tack onto that information.

My understanding is that sometime in October the t:slim G4 pump will be available from Tandem Diabetes. It will also integrate (some?) support for the Dexcom G4 sensor/transmitter.

I believe, but am not absolutely sure, that both pumps use the older Dexcom calibration algorithm. In order to use the more recent "505 firmware update" which Dexcom released earlier this year you will still have to use a Dexcom monitor/receiver.

Dexcom has also recently announced approval of their G5 transmitter. Since the G5 uses BlueTooth and the G4 does not, the G5 will not work with the pumps which currently support the G4.

A lot of this is probably a consequence of Dexcom only licensing their technology to the pump manufacturers as opposed to co-developing (?) a pump with them. It can take longer for the separate companies to "sync up" with what and how they support CGM when they are maintaining an "arm's length" distance.