What is your child’s Total Daily Dose (TDD) if you don’t mind me asking?
We were never able to get more than about 180 units “usable” in the Animas Ping after priming.
@Tim35 So any idea what happens if I hoard supplies and we are after the 9/30/19 that Medtronic provides coverage and the pump fails? Will Medtronic still supply a pump, or another question will we have to return the Ping in order to get the 630g in May? This makes a big difference because I don’t want her to have to go back to MDI, the pump brought her A1C down from 8 to 6.6 in the month she was on it. If not than I think I will just have to go with what Medtronic offers (I plan to check with Tandem and my supplier just in case) and get through the over 3 years we will have it. Make the best of it I suppose.
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The $999 fee to Tandem gets credited back at the end of the period however.
“This amount can be credited to the purchase of a new Tandem pump and/or supplies at the end of their current Animas or Roche pump warranty period or may be refunded.”
The details of the Tandem offer go into the situations where all or part of the fee is NOT refunded.
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Nope. Only guesswork based on the same info you have. The strong implication (if not expressly stated?) being that past Sept 2019 you are on your own if you do not take the Medtronic offer.
If the FDA approval is a big deal for you you could try talking with your insurance company to see if they would approve the Tandem pump. It would be an uphill battle for sure but maybe a possibility?
@Tim35 No problem at all asking. I can only seem to get 186 in a cartrige before I prime so…that plays a part too (glad its not just me). Her basal is currently 33 units a day, but we are getting ready to raise it a bit overnight to counter some hormones. Her bolus really depends, it is rarely under 35 (only if we are doing lower carb or she has a not hungry day) but she is usually just a bit more than that.
I just looked at her Diasend and it looks like she has been averaging about 71 units a day TDD. Of course sometimes it is higher due to corrections. I work Mon-Thurs 10 hour days so we usually do 2 day site changes before dinner, but Friday, Sat and Sun I run it as long as I can to try to get those last units out (it feels wasteful to let 38 or so units just get thrown away).
@finny81 - That seems similar to our insulin usage. We range in the 40 ~ 70 TDD. Some days kids eat a lot of carbs and need more insulin and some days they don’t. It is what it is. I think my T1 was better at priming and could also get around 186 like you. I was probably not so careful and sometimes would only end up with maybe 175 - lol.
Based on our insurance situation, the wasted insulin was not a high priority so we were more about site changes to ensure no damage and good insulin absorption. We would sometimes get 3 days and sometimes on high carb days need to do a 2-day site change.
Now that we are on the Tandem t:slim X2, we never have to change due to running out of insulin so have to be a bit more careful not to accidentally use the same infusion site for 4 days. The X2 has a 300 unit cartridge. We put 250 units in so as to split the insulin vial evenly into four site changes. Then about 17 units for priming leaves us with about 233 usable insulin units in the Tandem. Which is plenty for us for 3 days.
@Tim35 I guess I just don’t understand why it is not FDA approved and that is concerning for me. I have enough to deal with from a type 1 stand point I don’t want to be putting her in danger if there is a good reason not to have someone under 16 on it, I guess is my point of view .
I’m not against uphill battles believe me our current supplier has been a nightmare and a fight with them and insurance all the way it seems, but that is another story for another time 
I reached out through email to the Tandem rep I had talked to and also to Medtronic about the FDA approval for the 630g so I guess I will take it from there and see what options I may have before I take it up with insurance.
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Based on the black box FDA warning for children under 6 on the 670g (not the 630g you are considering) which states the pump may be dangerous, and the LACK of such on the 630g, there is no particular reason to assume the 630g would be bad for your child. Certainly something you would want to discuss with your Ped Endo. Potentially the reason it was only approved for 16+ is because Medtronic just didn’t want to spend the money to run a Pediatric trial. I am positive many children under 16 would be using the 630g but I have no knowledge one way or the other - only assumptions on that.
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What I don’t understand is this - how can you be warrantied until 2021? The warranty is being maintained via the Medtronic offer? What’s the warranty stipulation if you refuse the Medtronic offer? There has to be some fine print somewhere, or is that wishful thinking?
I hope you get through to Tandem and they make an accommodation for you.
I think FDA approval is often a matter of completing testing on subject groups and not necessarily an indication of lack of safety. If you had a 2 year old with very low insulin requirements, I would think differently.
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Money wise insulin is not the issue (our insurance situation keeps our out of pocket to $0) but it’s just the concept that something that vital to life is wasted (totally a personal thing). I am very careful with site changes because she has a very long life ahead and I want her to have good absorption. Sometimes we can do three days because she is running at target and not eating a ton of carbs, but like you said her endo has told us not to restrict carbs and so we don’t she needs what she needs and I’m ok with that. I would love to be able to have up to 300 units so we could do a full three days.
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@Lorraine So the way it has been explained to me is (I will use our situation) since her Ping would be warrantied until August 2021 if this had never happened. Now Animas has worked with Medtronic to keep that warranty, but switch to a 630g in May 2018. If you choose not to then you will still have coverage until September of 2019 at which time you will have no access if it malfunctions and access to supplies that your distributor may or may not have. In the event that you pump does malfunction you are out of luck since you turned down the offer and insurance is not paying for a new pump until 2021. If someone else has better or more accurate info please let me know, but based on conversations with Animas this is my understanding.
Not choosing to switch to the 630g is you have a waranty past 9/30/19 is an at your own risk situation.
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Understood. Very shady. No like.
This arrangement was a business decision. This is not in the best interest of the consumer.
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I will say - one of the aspect I like about the Ping was it was freaking durable. It seemed like it was built to military standards to be able to survive an airdrop. My number one concern over switching to the Tandem was if it was going to be able to stand up to the constant abuse the Ping received. Especially after never being worried about breaking the Ping, were we going to have to treat the Tandem special like a cell phone due to its touchscreen? We were assured the Tandem was not fragile.
Point being - the Ping was/is a tough little pump.
The issues that caused us to finally switch (two years past our warranty) were relatively minor but just accumulated enough to push us into something we had already been thinking of for a few years:
Screen was dim and would not brighten to full intensity as per the controls should allow
Paint was flaking
Time/Date would not persist across a AA battery change
Case had a crack near the battery compartment
But - it was still functional !!!
I still have it in a drawer as a backup. Well - next to about 6,000 syringes that are the real backup. lol.
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And …if you use the long tubing that takes 23 units to prime so you only have about 160 usable. And… the prime program on the Vibe is designed to only let you prime 20 units. So… you have to go ALL the way back through the priming menu for the extra 3 units.
My solution is to carefully pull back the piston past the end stop whist filling the cartridge. This overfills it. When you put the cartridge into the pump, it forces out the extra insulin into the tubing, so you only need a couple of units to prime. Sometimes there’s a not primed error message immediately if you prime less than 10 U, but you can get rid of this by priming another unit. I typically get 188-190 U in a cartridge.
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lol - I tried that once in terms of pulling the piston back further. The whole thing fell apart on me. Obviously it requires a bit more finesse than I was giving it.
After the one incident, I never tried again. We only used the shorter 23" tubing. My T1 would consistently get 186 units available after the prime. I was usually good for the low 180’s but sometimes would fall into the upper 170’s. Obviously I am not as good of a cartridge changer !!!
It requires quite a bit of finesse not to pull the piston out completely. Also Animas specifically advise against doing that. However, once you get the hang it is pretty easy to do. Allows me to get a 4 days out of a cartridge.
Most people seem to use the short tubing but I prefer the 43". Bit more of a nuisance to tuck out of sight, but much less likely to pull on the infusion set with drawer knob incidents. Also easier to sleep with as it doesn’t pull or get caught up when I turn over in bed.
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I will look some more at the Dana. There is one good thing about it…as I go to Korea on occasion, maybe this would not necessitate a suitcase full of Animas stuff. Can it be used with the Dexcom? Do you know if the screen is easy to see. My original decision in 2010 to go with Animas was because I could read the screen easily. This summer, I had a loaner Medtronic 5xx, couldn’t see the screen.
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Am calmer now. According to the Medtronic rep, I can get the 630G and not use it’s CGM, do stuff manually with aide of Dexcom. I hope this is true.
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The screen on the current model (Dana R) is not great for readability. It has supposedly been improved on the new RS model (which I have not seen). However, screen legibility should not be an issue because the pump is designed to be fully controllable (ALL functions including cartridge loading etc) remotely via Bluetooth from a mobile phone (or a dedicated remote controller). At present the App is only available for Android, but a version for iPhone is supposed to be released shortly. For Dexcom, you can send your G5 readings direct to the phone using either the Dexcom App or Xdrip+ (for Android only). Thus you can control your pump, and have your CGM data on a single device.
For me, the attraction of the Dana (and I am going to try to get one to replace my just-out-of-warranty Vibe), is that it will run Android APS, which is one of the DIY hybrid closed loop systems (actually a variant of OpenAPS). The other loop systems onlly work with “heritage” (x22) Medtronic pumps and need DIY soldering and programming of hobby microcomputers and radio links. With the Dana + Android APS all you need is the pump, Dexcom G5 and an Android phone.
If you go with the 630G, of course you can use Dexcom G5 and send the readings to your phone (or a receiver), but you will not get the low glucose suspend feature of the 630G unless you use Medtronic’s sensor.
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Thanks. If I understand correctly, this would mean having the ability to do ‘touch screen stuff’. Due to a finger issue, touch screen is very difficult, and sometimes almost impossible, for me to do. Thus no Tandem stuff for me, also have an IPhone.
So, looks like Medtronic 630G, but I really wish Animas were not going out of business. I don’t like the elimination of choices.
Dexcom wakes me up if I go low. This summer I used a Medtronic for three weeks, it often shut off because of an incorrect low reading,