Picked a Pump!

After countless hours of research and loosing way too many minutes of sleep stressing about which pump to pick I finally came to a decision. I'm going with the Minimed Paradigm 522 pump, contrary to what I had earlier stated. After exhausting every possible shred of information I came to the conclusion that the 522 was the best pump for me.

During my trial of the 522 I absolutely loved that I could access the bolus wizard by simply hitting the "B" button on the pump - this took about 3 less steps than the Animas 2020 would have. Also, I felt the way the bolus wizard worked was more intuitive and provided better information than the Animas 2020.

After reading some awful reviews of the OneTouch meters on Six Until Me I came to the realization that Minimed puts out a better overall product than the Animas/ J&J team does. I have to base my future expectations on the past performance of the Animas family of products; the glucowatch has proven to be unreliable and OneTouch meters don't seem to be as accurate as the competition. Also, I expect a company that is just 6 years old to have been more innovative than they have been to date. While the 2020 has a better design and a great color screen I just don't think it stacks up against the functionality of the Minimed. I'm trying to live a healthy life not win a fashion contest so I went with the practical decision.

I'll have the full tale of the tape to more fully illustrate my decision but I wanted to share my excitement with the rest of the blogosphere! I can't wait to get on the pump and start experiencing some of its benefits.

In The Name Of Research!

I did proclaim my love of the Animas pump after my brief trial but in the interest of fairness and information I have decided to go on a similar saline trial with the Minimed 522 pump. After this trial I will be able to report on the pluses and minuses of each pump and really make an informed decision about which device will help me best control my blood sugars. Next Wednesday I'm also meeting with a rep from Deltec, the makers of the Cozmo pump. The Cozmo pump has been getting some good publicity on the internets and I wanted to check them out as well. Unfortunately, Deltec has a policy of not allowing saline trials so I'll have to really check that pump out during the sales pitch.

I'd love to hear the experience of some pump users out there!

The Search for a Pump - Part 2

My experiment with the Animas 2020 has continued and I've been pretty pleased with the results. Alot of my fears about how I'd react to the pump have really been alleviated. After the first cannula fell out I had some issues getting a new one in. The first time I tried to put a new cannula in I forgot to remove the plastic needle guard; the second time I removed the plastic needle guard but forgot to remove the paper on the adhesive tape! It is really disconcerting when you stab yourself with a needle to realize you just ruined that infusion set because you're too dense to remember all the steps - now I see why it takes 2 office visits until they let you use one of these things!

The other big challenge was getting into my bathroom, the Animas rep only had the 46" infusion sets for me so I'm dealing with twice as much cord as I'd like. Each time I went into my bathroom last night the tubing got stuck on my door handle. Beyond that I really didn't have too many complaints. I was able to sleep perfectly well, the tube never got wrapped around my body and when the tube was resting across my stomach I hardly felt it.

Today at the gym I decided to remove the tube and pump since I was doing squats and bench. The doctor's say you can leave the pump out for about an hour and 1/2 at a time so I thought my hour workout would be fine. Although I'm only using saline at this point I'm trying to make my trial as realistic as possible. The cannula stayed in during this workout so I was a happy man!

Each time I'm supposed to give myself a bolus I do it with my novolog pen and with the saline in my pump. I really can see how the pump will improve my quality of life and allow me to have an unexpected snack. For example, when I was headed to Grand Central today to catch a train to my parents for the long weekend I was dying to get a hot pretzel with some cheese for the hour long ride. However, I didn't really feel like exposing my stomach to the world to stab myself in front of small children. If I had insulin instead of saline in my pump I could have gotten that pretzel, hit a few buttons and kept my bs around 100 - this trial is really convincing me the pump is the way to go.