Comparing Ping & Revel Pumps for a 3 year old

Our soon to be 3 year old son has been doing MDI for a little over a year now. We are about to move forward with an insulin pump and are in our final stages of making a decision. We have taken the pump class and spoke with his Endo. We are trying to choose between the Animis Ping and the Minimed Revel. From what we can tell these are both great pumps that will work for him but I would like to ask if there is much of a difference between the two? All of the reps that we talked with were great except that the Medtronic sales angle was all about their CGM and it was not until we got home that we found ou that our son was not old enough for CGM. Thanks for any help that you can offer to us!

I can’t help you on the pump choice because my son is on a Paradigm, but as far as Medtronic is concerned, it’s not just a sales pitch – that is, don’t be so sure your son isn’t old enough for CGM. It may not yet have FDA approval for children under 7 but plenty of kids younger than that have them “off-label” because they can show medical necessity. It’s less about age and more about whether he has the “real estate” for both a pump site and a CGM site (that is, if he’s got a big enough butt!), and also whether there is concern about poor control. My son Eric, who will be four on Friday, has had his CGM for 2 months now. Eric’s a1c had risen steadily for 3 consecutive visits over 9 months with LOTS of nighttime highs when I finally asked (thinking the answer would be “no”) whether there was any hope of getting a CGM. His endo said, “Yeah, he’s big enough” and told me to call Medtronic, which I did… and I had approval from Anthem less than a week later. It has been a great help to me in keeping his numbers stable, so keep that in mind.

Thanks for the reply and the information. We assumed that since he was under seven that CGM was not an option. Also, maybe I miss spoke when I said sales angle. I meant that seemed like the main benefit over the ping. I am happy to hear that your son is having better control now!

Yeah, that’s what I assumed too! But if he’s physically large enough, and if it’s medically indicated, he can get one. I didn’t have to jump through anywhere near as many hoops with Anthem as I expected (probably because of the increase in A1c – they don’t want to see that any more than I do).