The new pods alarm two hours after a pod change to remind you to check your blood glucose. If you change around bedtime, this is particularly annoying. Last night, I had a late change, and since we had a fan running in the bedroom, I slept right through the alarm. This morning I noticed the PDM was on, and I'm assuming it was on from the time of the alarm until I acknowledged it. Batteries are down to about 50%, if the meter is to be trusted. I know if no way to disable this alarm. If anyone does, please let me know. I can see this one being a pain.
Addendum: The crazy thing is, this alarm goes off even if you've checked your BG since the pod change.
You shouldn’t change pods before bed. The majority of occlusions / failures occur within a few hours of a change. A pod failure just before bed that you don’t notice could easily lead to DKA.
If it’s a choice between convenience & life, I choose life!
Ugh. I am excited about the size and *some* of the new features of the 2nd gen pods...and then I read posts about the annoying things like this, and I get frustrated.
Did they do ANY focus groups of actual users before they decided to add all of these "neat new 'better' features"!? :-/
Design fail. Very disappointing to see a pump company do this. I don't care if "driving" with insulin is dangerous, all alarms should be optional.
Agreed. Options are key. If parents of little ones want it (for themselves or teachers at school, etc), that's great. I don't want or need it either a) in the middle of a lecture of faculty meeting at work, or b) when I'm trying to sleep. I'm an adult and I can make adult decisions, and I don't need a nagging machine on my back all the time.
Wasn't their mantra "making diabetes a smaller part of life" or something along those lines? Whatever happened to that thought process...?
I change as soon as I wake up on change-days. The alarm goes off before I start work, so it’s unobtrusive. If it beeps for any reason whilst I’m at work, I deal with it.
The choice is more about quality of life I think. This lowers it, unfortunately.
Also, what about those on CGMs? They don't need a reminder. I guess Insulet didn't even think about that.
I think quality of life has more to do with attitude than the odd beep here & there. I’m happy because I choose to be happy.
To me, if a piece of kit not working properly might kill me, the manufacturer of that piece of kit needs to make me aware of how / when to monitor - not presume that I spend a load more money on a CGM.
I have always been advised to change pods on waking, which minimises the inconvenience of the beep.
I think all alerts can be disabled, except for the "pod expiration alert", unless that has been changed. Please check the manual or the alerts configuration/settings screen.
Let us know what you find out. Thanks for sharing!
Belinda I think it's awesome that this OmniPod issue had no negative impact on you. But I don't think it negates that there is a problem that many other users apparently have with this new feature of the OmniPod.
I have rarely had issues with occlusions and have never had one that was undetected by the OmniPod. Moreover, I don't like changing my pods in the morning. I'm typically in a rush to get my child off to school in the morning and I think I ought to have the option to change my pod as I see fit. I have zero appreciation for being forced to manage my disease the way another person says I should, whether it's a doctor, nurse, or the guy next door, especially because in most case those telling me what to do are clueless.
Without question, an individual ought to have the option to take advantage of the protections these alarms, etc. have to offer, but one should also have the option to not use them. It provides more freedom to those using it and it makes the item more appealing to those in the market to purchase it.
I want to thank those of you who are giving us a heads-up on what to expect. I certainly appreciate having the information in advance.
Page 68 of the new (UST400) manual. I'd quote it but the people who wrote the manual chose to attempt to stop people quoting from it, and it takes a little time to work round that.
The manual says that everything non-serious can be stopped (according to the manual). Checking blood glucose after a pod change isn't mentioned in the manual, it's definitely not an alert so it can be turned off. (Or maybe the manual is wrong...)
John Bowler
If that alarm saves one life, it’s worth the “inconvenience”. My attitude to my pod is that it is there to keep me safe. I think that alarm is one, like the 16-hour shut-off that you can’t deactivate.
At this point id LOVE to have the "problem" of the post-change alarm. Still very curious why Insulet is fighting the transition so much for a person that has the NEW pods in his possession as we speak.
Its gotten to the point where they have their arms around the distributors (which DO have the new PDMs) and wont even allow people to BUY them through distributors.
Not to beat a dead horse or anything w/ the whole PDM non-release issue, but have you tried talking more formally w/ them and some sort of legal representation, utilizing your rights?
As in the Patient's Bill of Rights (standard document that all US-based people have available to them when dealing with health care organizations...at least ones who are accredited).
Check page 158 of the user guide for your rights and responsibilities.
https://www.myomnipod.com/pdf/14421-AW%20UST400%20User%20Guide%20Rev%20C.pdf
Outside of this, I'm sorry to say I don't think that there's much more to be done, so re-hashing it here on every new thread that is started is not going to get you any more traction, unfortunately :(
But back to the actual topic at hand:
Yes Belinda I think some inconveniences are worth it in the long run, for the greater good. Without arguing some sort of ethical values though (virtue vs Kantian vs consequentialism etc), I think that "improved" alarms that cannot be silenced because the company suddenly thinks that the user is no longer able to use logic to test after a site change (as was done in the past, with great success in most of our cases, I would imagine) is not in the best interest of the group at large, and is rather a bit of a step backwards, in my opinion.
If they wanted to include it as an option, that's fantastic. Some people need/want those sort of reminders. I am not in that group, unfortunately, and I'd like to be able to put on a new pod and go about my business w/o having to try and schedule a new "opportune time" that will be followed by a good window two hours later for this sort of alarm confirmation and testing opportunity.
I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it flows in my lifestyle before making any final judgement on it, but at this point in the process, I'm unfortunately not impressed.
Yeah Ive done a BBB complaint and a complaint to the local Attorney General
The more I've been reading about some of the newer "features", the more I'm happy to wait for the new system.
I’ve only ever had the new pods & I’m happy. Between the ones complaining that they have the new one & the others complaining that they don’t… The common denominator seems to be complaining.
My Clinicians advocate morning pod changes before breakfast. This is mainly for safety, but it minimises the issues with the alarm. Changing pods less than 2 hours before bed is risky, and frankly, an alarm in those circumstances is a good thing.
If you change when you’re awake, you can respond to a problem easily. If you change & bolus, you flush out the debris. If you change & test frequently, you’ll spot problems. Even with a CGM you should test, so that the CGM readings don’t wander into inaccuracy.
As you've mentioned in many other threads.
I see you have any number of new threads started which I'm happy to ignore. Could you kindly limit your "contributions" to those threads and keep the completely unrelated ones on topic?
Please?
Thank you.