I woke up two days in a row after sleeping only three or four hours and my pump had shut off the insulin it said due to 12 hour not using it. I do not think that it was 12 hours since I had done anything on my pump either so I decided to just turn that alert off to stop it from shutting itself off while I’m sleeping.
The first time it happened it was off for an hour while I slept. I increased my basil- fortunately it only went up to like 120 or something I bolused little bit and went back to sleep for a while.
When it happened today it only been off for about 10 minutes when I woke up and bg was low so I drank a little juice.
I think it was low the other day too but I don’t remember. So I have turned off that alert on my pump- do you know if that will stop it from doing this anymore? I guess I’m going to have to call them to figure out what is going on here. I don’t want to wake up in DKA because my pump decides to shut off my insulin.
This site is so annoying to post on now… First of all the whole menu looks different- that could be because of a new system maybe on my iPad I don’t know. Secondly as I’m trying to navigate and post this it keeps popping up other posts that are similar to mine which aren’t. I think that should be done away with it’s just an annoyance. Normally if I select desktop on my iPad I’m OK and it just looks like on my laptop but something has changed on a lot of sites I use and here the box to post is so tiny now and it keeps closing itself so I can’t see anything very well and then on top of that you have those silly posts popping up in the middle of all of this while I’m trying to type or dictate etc.
I don’t think mine turns off but it was initially set to alarm if I don’t unlock or enter anything for 12 hrs. I changed that to 18 hours so at least that reason to beep went away.
Regarding this site, I only access on iPhone and I haven’t noticed any changes with that interface.
Mine actually shuts off the insulin, after 12 hours of supposed inactivity which I know did not happen. I hope deactivating the alarm will stop this. It has happened once or twice in the past too almost always when I am asleep which is dangerous.
Here are pics of what happened. It was actually off for 20 minutes today when I woke up. And my Dexcom sensor had failed again also.
Yes I am on the craziest sleeping schedule lately due to numerous stressors. I’m doing online training where I’m up all night working and then I stay up in the morning to the afternoon to make phone calls these past few days regarding my Dexcom coverage of my transmitter being shut down apparently. I am not sure how they could cover the sensors but not the transmitter?
On top of that I’ve had two Dexcom sensors fail in a row after 3-4 days and I’m worried now something is wrong with the only transmitter I have. I figured out if it’s an emergency while I wait to see what’s gonna go on with the coverage I can get a transmitter the cheapest at Costco. But still way more than my copay. My endo office is already doing the necessary steps to get it re- covered if this is the case.
I turned mine off as well. But I did it the minute I got it so no issue.
As for the site look and feel, it is funky on the IPad If you are used to posting on a computer. I use my IPad for posting while traveling but I use a laptop at home.
So my turning the alert off will that stop it from shutting off the insulin now? I can’t remember- it’s been quite a while since I read all of this in the training. It definitely was not 12 hours since I did anything on my pump either so something is wrong I’m going to have to call them- ugh.
Normally on my iPad if I select desktop it looks just like the desktop but they must’ve updated the operating system to stop that because I’m having awful interfaces at lots of other sites too now. I mostly use my iPad for everything. I’ve been using my laptop more since teaching online, but not so much for general online stuff.
That was the reason it said it shut off when I woke up as I recall, I did not take a pic then, I will next time. Hopefully there will not be a next time now.
I always thought that was crazy to allow the pump to shut off insulin automatically after 12 hours of inactivity. You could also be inactive because you had very high blood sugar and passed out or something.
I edited this twice to change too to and it didn’t work, so annoying. There is another site that does that to me too, it never correctly corrects my edits for errors, it must be the same edit system. That one also resaves everything you type forever even after you delete it.
The other side of it is you could be passed out in a low state or it could be in a disconnected because of surgery and pumping insulin. There are many ways of looking it, but for me at least it just does not make sense.
Yes but I could end up in dka. If I’m low my body raises me most of the time or I wake up and treat it. I don’t want my pump automatically doing anything like that to be honest, let’s hope shutting that alert off took care of it.
If you are not using CIQ or Basal-IQ, and don’t have auto-off alert turned on, and all basal segments are greater that 0, you will get exactly what is set for basal rates. If you use CIQ or BIQ, you may get suspended basal, that will change based on CGM bg.
By default, I thought the Tandem auto-off alert was not set, and I specifically chose to turn it on, and entered number of hours. (Checked manual and it shows it is set ON initially, for 12 Hours. So it must be changed by user or trainer if not wanted to alert.)
If I have not bolused after 16+ hours, I assume I may be having an extreme low, or cgm is not providing accurate BG, and the alert is helpful for me. Auto-off Suspended insulin may save my life at that point, even though very unlikely to occur. Its like wearing a seat belt, just in case.
It’s known as the “dead man’s alarm” in the industry. It’s to limit the manufacturer’s liability when we’re found dead or unconscious and the pump is still trying to force insulin. They always look at the medical devices whenever there’s a problem.
It comes factory set as 12 hours of inactivity initiates a shutdown, unless you dismiss an alert.
It never used to be optional, but one of the recent software updates finally gave us the option to disable the auto-off.
And FYI, their definition of “inactive” is different than what we may think. Just turning on the screen and checking your BG doesn’t count. I don’t know what the actual minimum is, but it always seemed like I had to actually bolus to count as activity. I got them almost every morning after Control-IQ first came out without the opt out of auto-off alarm, because I wasn’t needing to correct after dinner anymore. If I bolus around 6pm for dinner and not again until 10am or so for breakfast, I was easily going 16 hours without bolusing and getting the auto-off alarm at 6am. Drove me crazy!
Since I usually snack in the evening and often bolus through the night, I do fine with the 12-hour auto off. It probably alarms for me once every 6 months and always surprises me.
Through the years I have read all of the stories of people dying because of pumps continuing to deliver insulin when they were unconscious from hypoglycemia. So this auto off is a safety feature.
And of course it can raise the risk of DKA.
For the pump companies, it is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.
I think CGMs have changed the landscape of diabetes safety but only if one is conscious enough to respond to alarms.
I still think that taking injections is much riskier than pumping for Type 1’s. Every day I read of people injecting a huge dose of fast-acting when they meant to inject their long-acting.
No one needs to remind us that our life-saving insulin is dangerous. I respect my insulin but try not to fear it.
The alarm is not the problem, shutting off insulin is the problem… you can go into dka if you are asleep, it does not take long for me.
Shutting off the alert however they told me does stop it from shutting off the insulin. So we have control to stop it from doing that.
However when mine shut off I am positive that there was not a 12 hour period where I did not do something on the pump. I called Tandem and they uploaded my data or helped me to do it, they were going to study it because they don’t allow me to see that- whether it was used in that period.
Today at 3:30 AM I went to check my records to see when my last inset was and all of a sudden I got multiple the data error Alerts and all of my pump records vanished.
I knew I was gonna need a new pump so obviously something was wrong already and they should’ve given me one based on it shutting itself off.
I called and got some idiot there then who terrified me, who did not do his job- he was trying to tell me I have to switch to back up insulin when in fact it turned out the pump was still delivering insulin. He was not only not figuring that out he was berating me and argumentative and worse. It was hard to believe.
I asked him to speak to someone else after he got me my new pump set up to ship etc. and he claimed that was no one else there. A lie. He was the only one there according to him.
So I called the emergency on call doctor because I only had two year expired toujeo and then I called Tandem back and someone else answered- a woman who apologized for his negligence and told me that the pump was still pumping insulin. And I was OK until the new one arrives tomorrow.
What a nightmare. I hope they have registered my complaint about him.
By the way, eoc doc did not call back until 7:30 am 5 hours later when I was finally asleep. I called my endo later, they rx new toujeo and told me exactly what to do if it ever stops delivering insulin. I had forgotten and was in a panic.
I am way more afraid of dka than a low while asleep. The pump stopping insulin is very dangerous either by doing it intentionally or by error.
I am not using any of them. Dexcom is not accurate reliably. Tandem said when you shut off the alarm, it stops the pump from stopping insulin. Unfortunately my pump since failed and is being replaced so something else was wrong.
