New MiniMed user with a few questions

I’ve been using the MiniMed 630G pump+cgm for two weeks. I was an Omnipod user for years, but I aged into Medicare this month, so I had to change systems. The tubing is a definite learning curve, not a hardship, just very different. I’m also not having as much of the blistering that I was having with the Omnipod, so that’s a good thing; not having to use anything under the infusion set, but do have to use a barrier under the sensor tape, so far the Bard wipes have been working. There are a few things that I’d like to ask other users, though, as neither Medtronic tech support nor my CDE have definitive answers, so here goes.

How often do you experience signal loss, and have you figured out what causes it? What I’ve heard so far – this has happened twice – is that there may be a conflicting signal from either my iPhone or my wireless router, which is connected to my laptop, about 3-4 feet away from me, but I don’t have enough data to say so myself. Once I was near the router, once I wasn’t. Now, mind you, this same thing happened to me with the Dexcom cgm, and in that case, my cell phone WAS my receiver, and it would be in my side pocket, with the transmitter attached to my abdomen, and the signal would go out. Have the rest of you who use the MiniMed had the same experience?

My other question is just day to day, and very likely more to the point for women users than men. I’m assuming that this means a lifetime of wearing separates, yes? I got a very low profile runner’s belt, in the event that I’m wearing slacks or a skirt without pockets, but it seems to me that a dress with a back zipper, or a pullover, just isn’t going to work, even if it does have pockets.

Also, if any of you have tips on tubing management, I’m open to suggestions. :slight_smile:

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Welcome to the MM world. You will get used to the tubing, takes a while. Think there was jut a thread about “getting dressed up” for women and how to hide pump apparatus just recently.
Don’t have much to offer on the mini med CGM as was not a fan when I first tried them out and seemed like more work than it was worth to me.

Here is the “dressed up with pump” thread.

There were quite a few others also in the past couple of years! As a guy, I of course avert my eyes at these threads:-)

As a note: the 670 is coming out in a few months (April?), and I am pretty sure that you will be able to upgrade.

What makes this a huge deal is that the 670 is an external artifical pancreas with closed loop control. So you may want to discuss upgrading asap - there will probably be a deadline for upgrading so don’t miss it if this is of interest to you (it would be to us).

I found the spibelt was keeping the insulin too close to me and warming it up, rendering it less effective after a couple of days. So I got a radrr case and put it on my spibelt. Loving this! Can make the insulin stay okay for a couple of days now and I’m not wasting as much. Can coil up the excess tubing and pack it on top of pump when in a radrr case. Much easier than trying to jam it all in the spibelt pocket. So far this is working alright and I can hide glucose in the spibelt pocket. Nothing is goign to waste. :slight_smile:

As far as cgm, I went with dexcom G4. Only complaint is price. With respect to signal loss,
when I lay on it or when it’s 3 weeks old I tend to lose signal.

My CDE told me about the new upgrade on my first training visit, so I will definitely be watching for it.

I switched recently to t:slim after well over a decade on Minimed, and find tubed pumps to be very similar in terms of wardrobe and other similar considerations. While separates are much easier, I do wear dresses and have handled the pump in different ways. Prior to using the CGM regularly (on my older Minimed, I rarely used the CGM because of numerous challenges with it), I would keep the pump in the waistband of my underwear and/or nylons and either close the door to my office to bolus or go to the restroom to bolus. Now that I am using the CGM nonstop, I tend to wear the pump in my bra when wearing dresses. Specifically, above the cup behind the bra strap. I nearly always wear a light cardigan over a dress, and have found the multiple layers camouflage the pump. Then, I can discreetly pull out the pump from the top of the dress, check the CGM screen and/or bolus, and then slip it back. All that said, separates are much, much more convenient for easy and discreet pump access.

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Thanks for sharing that idea. I’ve actually tried clipping it to the bra. I found the center to be fairly unobtrusive and not uncomfortable, though I felt a little like I was channeling my grandmother reaching for a tissue. :blush: Another thing that I wondered about was dresses with slit pockets. You could rip out the pocket seam just far enough to accommodate slipping the pump into the pocket from the inside, then secure the rest of the seam, and that would allow inside/outside access to the pump. This doesn’t address dresses without pockets, which seem to me to be a no-brainer, but not to dress designers/manufacturers.

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