Chris and Dave - When I posted that story about this person’s pump reservoir emptying and them going on a major pig out - what went thru’ my head was - if I’d had that amount of 140 units - and my carb ratio is 1 unit of insulin to 13g of carb - I would have eaten the Kwik-E-Mart of all their Coke/Twinkies in seconds flat!! Maybe that persons carb ratio was abit higher then mine - but it would be interesting to know (I’ll write to them after this and just ask out of curiosity).
Anna, another thought …a bit related or not ??..when I travel outside Canada , I always get a loaner pump from MM . or do you own more than one pump ? Never had to use the loaner yet 
Yes Nel - with Animas - they give you a loaner for free - whether in Canada or US. I just call them up a week before my departure - and I get a pump. Last one was a nice silver colour - and mine is blue - and I was secretly hoping mine would croak - so I could use the silver one because I’m a vain Montreal fashionista - and silver would have gone with all my evening attire (was on a 14 day cruise).
OMG, how terrifying!
Once I couldn’t remember if took my evening basal, or Apidra by accident. Was late & was very tired. Panic hit me as I was downing OJ & glucose gel–boy is that stuff nasty. Testing like crazy & didn’t exhale until I was over 300 just in case. My husband was standing by with glucagon & phone in hand.
If it was Apidra, I’d have been dead. Turns out I must have taken Levemir because I didn’t drop one point & was up the rest of the night trying to correct that high.
curious… how do you inject into your vein? can it be fairly common? i never hit one (that i know of!) the ten years that i was on MDI
Maybe that Person is somewhat Insulin Resistant Anna? I would be Kaput if that amount of units of Insulin went into my body, no matter what I ate or drank after the fact. I was wondering about that amount…
i’m slightly confused, so i’m hoping all you MM users could clarify something…
what exactly is prime mode? i use the omnipod, and when my pod is priming, it’s when it’s checking the pod for errors (after i fill it with insulin but before i stick it on my arm and the cannula inserts).
this kind of makes me glad that my pdm is not connected to the pod…not to say that it won’t malfunction (and hopefully it doesn’t), but it’s an extra level of safety to know that i won’t roll on it accidentally in bed and press buttons i shouldn’t be pressing!
That’s what I was thinking as well Terrie - that they were insulin resistant. They’ve never gotten back to me as to what their I:C ratio is.
As an engineer and information security professional I know that systems fail. There is no such thing as “PREVENTION OF FAILURE”. There is no engineer anywhere who can claim to design a system for every possible failure mode since that would imply complete knowledge of every failure mode. Good risk management is the best we can expect.
So to sum it up . Stuff happens. Life is risk.
Anna, I’m originally from the Grenadines. My mom’s family lives on the island of Bequia. Quite beautiful.
I am also an engineer and have done risk analysis and also possible failure mode analysis of critical systems (if X happens, is there anyway to correct, or at least make failure non-catastrophic). I agree that no engineer who can claim to design a system for every possible failure mode, but without knowing the entire ins and outs of insulin pumps, would think that while they can’t stop a run away prime on a malfunctioning pump, but there might be a possibility of cutting off power to the entire unit, or to the internal pump, if priming is detected and no input was determined to cause priming based on time of day, i.e in effect from midnight to 7 am. I also think that failure modes that any insulin pump manufacturer should consider is malfunction of total insulin delivery, and also malfunction of no insulin delivery. Both of these problem solutions require no action while the user is assumed to be awake and aware, so they can get immediate medical help, but if there is someway to kill delivery when the user can be assumed to be asleep and unaware, then it should have been implemented. I also realize that some people on insulin pumps work and are awake while most people sleep, so the implementation of time span to kill pump (am or pm) should be part of the pump setup.
This is also the first time I have been reading this discussion, and I am an American, who would also thinks that Americans are generally too fast to sue and thereby shift blame for their problems (might be from my grandfather originally being from Canada), but in this case, I think the family should sue, since the company has thrown a legal road block in their ability to make the information publicly known, but state upfront that any monetary gain would go to a specific charity.
Please, no one take this the wrong way… I have a habit of being the devils advocate. But is it possible to rewind the pump, prime it before going to bed, but forget to press escape to get back to the fixed prime option? Then perhaps laying on the pumps buttons causing it to continuely prime? I’ve never done this, but does the pump time out on the priming screen?
I see your point, but it seems very hard to be able to press the button to prime unless you are sleeping on a hard surface that would be strong enough to keep the button pressed down long/hard enough for it to do this.
This might not be an absolute solution, but why don’t they have a limit on how much can be dispensed in 1 cycle when priming the pump? Of course it could be avoided if there was some kind of controller failure in a pump, but it would almost certainly stop this happening nearly as often.
They have ways to set up limits on how many units can be shot in a day, why not on priming?
Worst case would be that someone who didn’t think to fill the 43" hose before priming might need to redo it several times. Of course they’d be less likely to do that again…
Seems that a priming limit should become a required item in all pump’s programs.
Theodore - I know with my Animas 2020 pump I can only prime my cannula up to 1 unit and no more. Not sure if it’s the same on the MM pumps or others out there on the market, but would expect that they have “x” amount allowed. Most infusion sets don’t take more then 1 unit. I am now using the Sure T’s - and no priming required on that.
Of course, instructions tell you that when you prime your infusion tubing - you do not have the infusion set inserted at the infusion base at the time of performing that action (my pump tells me more or less - “hey ding dong - disconnect from your infusion set”) - otherwise - you’re in deep trouble - if you stay connected - and prime the tubing without seeing what’s coming out from the other end. Hope I’m making sense here.
I’m the same as Dave below in his statement. Some folks who may have to change their infusion sets frequently might find it difficult being restricted to how much they can prime in “x” amount of time during the day. It wouldn’t make sense to me.
Well, here’s some more fuel to add to the fire. My endo just told me that one of his patients had a Medtronic pump “run away” recently. Obviously, not good.
MiniMed was never the same once Medtronic bought it. Quality control went to pieces.
When MM removed the water resistant claims after I bought my pump, I was furious. It was the only reason I “upgraded”. MM was totally non challant about it too.
I had my 508 replaced 4x in less than 2 years. Disappointing. My 722 has been reliable, so far.
Steven Krueger was found dead by his family (you can see his picture on top of the discussion). The insulin cartridge was empty and his appearance showed that he must have had a serious low. If put into the shoes of his family I would like to have answers how this could have happened and prevented. It may be a serial flaw or a combination of misfortune. I can not stand that some member here jumped to the quick conclusion that it is likely a result of improper operation by the patient. How on earth can people be so insensitive.
The 511 is an older pump device and it is possible that something is wrong with it. Toyota recalled their cars because an additional foot mat that was not part of the sold vehicle could under rare circumstances block the throttle. So the manufacturer even tried to cope with user behaviour that he did not recommend to his users. This is why I would like to see an investigation here.
This case can not be treated as “stuff happens”. Medical devices and their operating software are well documented like flight systems. It can be argued that the newer systems are safer because they have sensors to detect if priming happens while connected. If these failure modes can not be detected with the 511 the real questions is:
Should todays users of this Medtronic pump 511 be warned about its potential failure? Should Medtronic give specific orders to its users how to operate the pump: always lock the keyboard at night etc? It is a question of responsible action and behaviour by a major player in this industry.
Dave - No chance of error or suicide on Steven’s part. I have talked to his Mum (his Dad still finds it difficult to deal with), his sis-in-law (who is now going onto a pump despite Steven’s brother’s disapproval of her doing this - but she is diabetic and needing better control and I have helped ease her mind that this was a glitch - tho’ of course - she’s not going with MM product as I’m sure you can understand why). Still not sure why Medtronic has made such a hush hush about this, as Steven is not the only one to have had this happen from emails that I have received over the past few months.
I did “try” to talk to a few of the Medtronic reps at the IDF Congress back in October here in Montreal. I didn’t state Steven’s case, but I did try to approach them on “what if” - they seemed to deviate around it quite slyly - so not sure if they recognised my name (I was not wearing my Press badge, but only my Volunteer badge at the time - found people to be more upfront if I wasn’t wearing the Press badge - sad to say).
We will never know exactly what happened, as they Medtronic basically wiped their hands clean after saying the case had been cracked when they received it at their labs, despite it leaving the Health Canada labs fully intact and fully protected. When they received the pump back, it was sent unprotected in the envelope, which again, makes for more questions left unanswered, and an insult to the Kruegers. Again, they do not want compensation, but just the truth to be told, as to why the pump had done this. I think it’s something that they will have to live with for the rest of their lives not knowing why it happened - very sad 
Here’s the link to the story that I posted originally at Diabetes1.org