Vibe had a TIA

I changed my battery yesterday for my Vibe and the pump lost time and date information, immediately terminated my sensor session and appears to have lost at least one day’s worth of CGM data - although it may have lost it all. I’ve never had this happen before. If anyone else has had this experience, I’d love to know whether it was a one off or the start of regular problems. My only warranty on this pump is the right to change to a Medtronic 630 in which I have zero interest so I’m rather concerned.

Maurie

I never used an Animas Vibe but did use two Animas Ping pumps. When I lost date and time info when changing the battery, Animas sent me a warranty replacement pump. So I know they considered it a serious issue.

I’m not sure if my Ping experience translates to the Vibe, but if it does, I think you’ll need to be considering your pump replacement options sooner rather than later. Did your pump retain all your basal rates and other settings like ISF and correction factors? You may be able to limp along with your basic pump functions intact and live with the occasional BG data gaps.

Do you upload your BG data to a site like Diasend? Maybe that could mitigate you data loss exposure. Do you have your eye on any other pumps that could replace yours like the Tandem T:slim X2?

It may be in your best interest to get the MM630 as a warranty replacement so at least you’ll have a relatively new insulin pump to give you back-up while you decide what your preferred next pump will be.

Have you considered taking a pump break and returning to MDI?

My daughter had the date/time loss on 2 of her Pings. Animas tech support told me it was the internal battery starting to fail.

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Thanks Terry. I was planning on eventually moving to the T:Slim although I was hoping to have that wait for a while. I’m meeting with an educator at Joslin later this month to go over my options. I had a Medtronic once and hated it. I might take the replacement pump if (and only if) I could keep the Vibe but I doubt that is an option. I’m also not interested in going back to MDI. Sigh…

Good info. All pumps have internal batteries. It keeps the info temporarily while changing out the external battery. I use another ping as my backup pump. I have all the settings on it so if I need to switch I don’t have to re-input my settings. It seems like the internal battery keeps my settings. I hope it is being stored on an EPROM, erasable programmable memory chip. Therefore, if your pump loses info when changing external battery, your pump’s internal battery is dying. Get a replacement pump.

ive always had to reset the date and time on my animas pump when i did use it. i just restarted the CGM and not worry about it. I just started the medtronic 630G pump and going to be using the G5 dexcom soon. Never knew that it would be the internal battery in the pump. i just hope when i change the battery in my new pump i dont lose that info. on a side note, i go to joslin as well :smiley:

Good luck with the 630! One of the reasons that I don’t want to switch over right away is that Dexcom has G5 and G6 transmitters on back order. I was hoping to switch after they fixed their supply (and customer service) problems.

Maurie

I had he same issue on a Vibe - Animas replaced under warranty…

Maurie - Are you in Canada (Alberta perhaps)? My Vibe is on it’s last legs yet I don’t want to trade it for the Medtronic 630G (which I’ve heard bad things about).

There’s now only 2 pumps covered by government insurance here in AB: Medtronic and Omnipod

Where do we go from here?
Jim

Jim –

I’m in the US and in addition to the Medtronic and Omnipod, I can purchase the Tandem pump which is what I’m probably going to do. I’m not at all pleased that we have expensive health insurance and still will have to go out of pocket for the price of a pump but I don’t think it can be helped.

I didn’t like using a Medtronic pump years ago and I prefer a tethered pump to an Omnipod. I don’t envy your choice.

Maurie

Maurie - Appears the Tandem is currently undergoing Health Canada approval, a process that could easily take until 2019.

Canada is always 4-5 years behind the USA in medical tech :frowning:

Looks like I’ll have no choice except a Medtronic 630G (670 not available yet in Canada)

I held on to a Deltec Cozmo for a full four years after it went of warranty. Any chance you can hang on for another year?

Maurie

Ditto.

We were already out of warranty. Animas Customer Support told us this was a warranty item and if it was still under warranty they would have replaced it at no additional charge. The concern from Customer Support was that if the date/time was not being maintained during the battery change that other more critical settings could be lost.

We understand their concerns.

We ran the pump for another year anyway. Just didn’t want to switch until we were positive that we have made the best possible choice for our next pump.

The only issue we had a couple times was resetting the clock, the Ping interface (for whatever reason) makes it very easy to confuse the AM with the PM (or vice versa) which totally messes with the basal schedule. Believe it or not we actually messed that up twice. You would think we would have learned the first time.

Other than that, we actually never lost any other settings.

True. Although Tandem continues to forecast Canadian launch of the X2 this year.

Seeing is believing.

I really like the Vibe, but like many of them the screen brightness started dying 18 months in. I’ve had it nearly 36 months and the only way I can view / program it is in a dark closet or under blankets at night.

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they may not be on backorder now. i got one in my kit

i had that issue with the animas vibe. i would wait until i got home or some place where i could see the screen to give myself insulin for my meal. it seems like an issue for a few

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I thought that Medtronics has taken over maintaining Animas services until 2019. Have you called their Animas Customer Service to see if they continue to service warranty? They should then replace your Vibe with another one as long as your warranty is still in place. Call them and ask… What do you have to lose?

I do resent that Johnson & Johnson has dumped Animas users into Medtronics. But this maintenance issue may be part of their deal. Call and ask.

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Wouldn’t be a shocker if the only option they provide is a Metronic 640g at no additional cost as a warranty replacement for the Animas.

But totally agree with @Willow4 . “What do you have to lose?” Call them. If you don’t like the answer - just say no. One way to find out what they will actually say.

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Thank you and @Tim35 for pushing me to call Medtronic. Amazingly enough they are replacing the Vibe. Service rep couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful.

Maurie

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