Hi All, When I joined this site earlier this week someone asked me tyo report what I have found the Combo like to use.
I’m In New Zealand, and the meter has a different name, so if I start talking about the Performa, it’s the same thing as the Aviva meter!
This is my first pump, so it’s been a bit of an adventure, as my pump was provided for me by my hospital (New Zealand has a very different healthcare system to the US, and pumps are fully user pays) I didn’t get a choice in what I got. I had pretty intensive training, first on the basic how to of pumping, the stuff that is standard of any pump, much taken from the Joslin pump training manual. Then I had about 4 hours on the roche pump.
The Combo is pretty much a spirit pump with added bluetooth and a beefed up Performa meter. The bluetooth is locked and coded, so that you cannot get interference from cell phones or any other bluetooth unit. currently it is the only pump with a working remote available here, the other pumps work on RF, and the frequencies that they use are often already in use, or close to ones that are in use here and they often suffer from interference. That cannot happen with the bluetooth.
The meter can be used the same as the pump screen, if you go into ‘pump’ on the menu - the display is the same as it is on the pump, however you cannot control things like cartridge change from the remote. The meter also has the bolus wizard, it took a bit of getting used to the IOB calculator but I’ve found it pretty good, and the bolus wizard is easy to set up with multiple time frames and 'goals" It also can be set up to remind you to test after a hypo or hyper reading.
Best thing of all for me is the remote control feature - I’m a sales rep, and to keep the pump out of the way I often stash it in places that aren’t that easy to get at! I can however just bolus/correct or turn off an alarm by hitting the relevant buttons on the meter (and making sure I haven’t got my arm across the pump, otherwise it blocks the blue tooth).
I am waering dresses a lot more now, as I don’t have to find a spot to shoot into and worry about getting those blood spots on my clothes. or putting more holes in my lower thighs or arms - 26 years of this has meant that I’ve had a few patches of abused injection sites!
Most of all my control has improved, I’m getting back to reasonable levels of exercise (I’ve just gotta loose the weight now) without seizing which was happening on a monthly basis pre pump, and I’ve got my A1c to a 6.9 from a 7.9, looking at my records it should have been higher, but all the hypo’s evened out the numbers.
If you’ve got any specific questions just ask, I’ll try to do my best to answer.
Oh - I put on the pic so you can see how it compares to the normal performa/aviva meter. The bank card is in there as i took the pic to show non-d friends the size, so added something they know as a reference!
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