Hi all - Happy 3 day weekend!
So I had to change my Ping battery today and when I went to get the batteries I discovered that I had bought Lithium AAA instead of Lithium AA! It really doesn’t help to be good at stocking supplies if you buy the wrong thing! So I put in a regular AA battery. I seem to remember reading somewhere that it isn’t harmful to use them, they just get used really quickly, but I couldn’t find that in my manual. The Walgreens is a 12 block walk each way, I’m trying to fight off a cold, and I will be going on Tuesday so I figured I’m safe to use the regular battery until then?
hi zoe
i have used regular AA batteries before in my Ping. no they do not last as long as the Lithiums, but you will be fine until Tuesday. i think i changed mine after about 4 days, but only because i was changing my site and figured i may as well do it! and they were still fine. i use Lithiums all the time now, but i usually wait til they are on sale and then buy them.
you can use regular batteries, just make sure when you put it in, to change the setting from lithium, to alkaline (it asks you when you put the new one in)
Thanks, Kim, that’s what I figured. And thanks Donna - I looked right at the screen saying Lithium and clicked confirm! So I just went into setup and changed it.
What a silly morning I’m having. The pump battery alarm vibrated during the night, then my cat woke me up at 5:30 throwing up, then I discovered I had the wrong batteries, then I finally changed my site and had a gusher!
Sorry you’re having a rough morning, Zoe… I’m glad I’m not the only one that things like that happen to.
Over time, i’ve done the following:
When changing sites, and cartridges, I’ve thrown away the new line and kept the old one.
I’ve forgotten to tighten the cap on top of the cartridge, and watched in momentairy disbelief as the cartridge came up out of the pump.
I’ve checked my BG level, then gotten momentarily distracted, and forgotten to bolus (and wondered why my BG’s were in the stratosphere 2 hours later).
…Joe
Sounds like things I would do (and probably will in time!). I have a friend my age (62) who was concerned she might be developing Alzheimer’s. She read me a two page list of “spacy things” she’d done and I just laughed, shared some of my own, and told her it was normal aging. She was concerned, though, because it was in her family and went and got testing. When she called and told me the results were normal I resisted saying, “If you’d listened to me you could have saved yourself time and money”!
I’ve almost done the throwing away the wrong line thing but caught it. I’ve also disconnected for a bath, then gone in to bolus for lunch and remembered I hadn’t reconnected.
Yeah, I have a package here I cannot use.
Anyone need Lithium tripple A??? :-I
Oh that is too funny! I guess there are only a limited number of pump snafus we can come up with (oh, maybe not!). I actually just checked my manual to see if I could use it in the meter remote. It expressly says not to use Lithium batteries as the will limit the number of tests after we get the low battery light. Lithium extends the life in our pump, but would reduce the life in our meter remote!
Aren’t you supposed to understand more things as you get older? In our culture today it seems there are less things I truly understand every year! I gave up long ago on understanding everything about my computer and I just figure out what thing you click on to make another thing happen. I can get persistent when I want to do something so some people think I know more than I do and are always surprised when I don’t understand the simplest concept!
That’s too funny Zoe, I did the same thing - went to change my battery and found that I’d bought AAAs. Then I forgot to buy AAs every time I went to get them (did get other stuff though!) so used an alkaline twice. They lasted a little under a week. Got my lithiums yesterday 
And the older I get, the more I find I keep grabbing the wrong thing at the store…or, bad fruit, or broken boxes…
I’ll blame it on not shopping with the stupid reading glasses on…
Just be careful you get the correct Lithium batteries.
Recently my husband bought me some batteries, he got Energizer ADVANCED Lithium, not Energizer ULTIMATE Lithium, the Ultimate are marked L91 which is what the Animas manual specifies. the others are not & from the packaging blurb seem to have a shorter life. Don’t know if it would have made difference using them, but I didn’t try as I still had 1 left from an old packet.
Oh great, Annabella, something else to worry about! The manual specifies the L91 1.5 Volt but just calls it “Energizer Lithium”. It says "some other lithium batteries are available with other voltages such as 3.6V or 4.0V which should not be used. I wonder if that’s what the “Advanced” were? I’m adding that to my shopping list which I can’t function without though it obviously didn’t work for my last battery purchase! I think getting older at the same time the world is getting so much more complicated, is not a good combination!
Sorry, Zoe. I wasn’t trying to add to your headaches, it just caught me completely by surprise that there are 2 Energizer Lithium batteries. No, the Advanced said 1.5V also, that’s why he got them. We now have a spare pack of batteries in the cupboard!
Hmmmm…:::adding L91 and “Ultimate” to my list:::: I was just talking about retirement in another thread, I’m not sure how when I was still working a fulltime job and teaching at night I kept my head from exploding…oh right, I didn’t have Diabetes then! (I was diagnosed one month from retirement and didn’t start insulin until 18 months later).
You can use those AAA batteries in your Ping meter.
The manual actually says not to use Lithium batteries in the meter remote, Brian, because it will “significantly reduce the number of tests you can complete after the Low Meter Batteries warning screen occurs.”
i am happy i clicked on this thread. my meter needs a new battery and i almost put a lithium battery in.
when i first got the pump we were having a tornado so i bought lithium batteries (didnt know they required special lithium, now i have to check that!) and i also bought rechargable. now that i know that the meter cant take lithium im glad i bought the rechargable.
thanks for all the valuable info that i didnt even know i needed
Someone in a group I moderated did put the wrong battery in the ping meter, and they were not pleased with her at all. I think she had to pay for a new one!
When I shop, Laura, I keep my shopping list and my reading glasses in the outside section of my purse or in my pocket (the opposite one from my ping of course!). I’ve been using reading glasses for nearly 20 years now, you’d think I’d be used to it! Sigh.