My name is Dora and I´m new to the group. I´m writting from Brazil and English is not my first language. Therefore, I apologize for my writting mistakes.
I have a son who is almos 12 years old. He has been using the insuline pump by Medtronic called Paradigm 722 with the continuous glucose metering system.
In December we had a lot of problems with "weak signs" and "lost sensor" alarms. Whenever it happens, after the pump is able to "catch" the sign, the sensor starts again.
We have tried changing the sensors, the sensor aplicating area, transmiters and even the pump. Medtronic helped us with all of this, but even with the new pump the problem was not solved. Ah, I forgot to say that we turned off all our eletronic devices in the house and it didn´t help either .... After a while, however, out of nothing, everything started going well again.
Now the problem started again (it´s been about three weeks). We have already tried different sensors, a new transmiter, new areas of sensor application, a day without eletronics and the problem did not go away. We asked for help and Medtronic was not able to find a solution. We just can´t figure out what is going on. Does anyone know what is happening? How we can solve the problem?
I´m going crazzy because my son really ned continuous monitoring ....
Hi Dora, I was on a 722 for a couple of years using the Medtronic CGM system. I had the same errors as you mention, but usually was able to get things working again with a new sensor and/or a new sensor site. However, I have to say, the amount of time when their CGM was working properly and giving me valid readings was less than 50% of the time (I was trying to wear it 24/7). After about two years, I gave up with their "single pump and CGM system" and purchased a Dexcom CGM. Wow, what a difference for me, I was able to get good, consistent readings over 90% of the time. In my opinion, Dexcom fulfilled the promise of what a CGM should do. Unfortunately, I don't have any other suggestions beyond what you've already tried. Hopefully someone else on this forum will be able to provide some help for resolving the issues. Best of Luck!
Rodger
Dora, I don't use a pump but do use a Medtronic CGM, and I have difficulties at my home with wireless transmissions from other nearby signal sources bothering my sensor. When he is having Weak Signal or Lost Sensor problems, have you tried going a distance away? Does the problem go away at a distance from the home location (after telling it to recover the Lost Sensor, if you had that message)?
The 3 week improvement makes me wonder if a nearby business was shut down for vacations for the 3 weeks, and has resumed operations now. I have seen problems in work environments near companies that used microwave transmitters for distance communications, or with other kinds of equipment that 'leak' signals that interfere with wireless units, although I have not seen it in years in the United States. I don't know what the regulations are like in Brazil. If you can think of something like that that is nearby, and can try getting him away from it to test to see if that is the source of the problem, that would be a good test to try. Of course, that might not help if you cannot move your family away from that location.
Thanks for your thoughtful answer. We have actually tried getting away to places where aparentely there are not eletronic devices. The problem continued even in quite remote places (in the woods or at the beach).
We have also tried keeping him away from his or other people´s celular phones and that didn´t help much ...
But thank you very much .... AS my son said another day, we have keep trying to find an answer ....We just cannot afford giving up.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Unfortunately it seems that the DExcom is still not available in Brazil. But I will look into it again. If you hear anything new about how to solve the problem please let me know.
I was thinking a little more about the times when I received those alarms. I recall that one thing I did, which seemed to work some times was to have the pump and the sensor on the same side of my body. For example, I would insert the sensor on the left side of my stomach and normally wore the pump in my pants pocket on the left side and it seemed to have fewer issues. But when I placed the sensor on the right side of my stomach, sometimes, I would get these errors. I found that placing the pump on the right side seemed to help. I don't know for sure if this is what caused the errors for me, but moving the pump to the same side of my body seemed to help.
. We did try the strategies you mentioned. Sometimes it seems to help, but most times it doesn´t .... It is really strange what happens. It seems that there is no pattern to be found..... I´m a researcher and have a good eye to see patterns, causes and consequences, and so on. In this case, I´m feeling quite stupid ....
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. It gives me hope. Dora
I have used the Medtronic CGM for about 3 years now and had problems with inserting the sensor in my abdomen, on the otherside of my insulin injections site. After long and frequent discussion with Medtronice they suggested I put it on the back of my arm, but as I live alone putting it there is a bit difficult. I finally decided to place it on my outer thigh just behind the horizontal axis through my body. Since the new placement and new sensors that came out a few months ago in Europe, my CGM has almost 100% accuracy with my BG's as measured in my blood. I sleep with the pump on the same side as the CGM to avoid sleeping on the CGM itself as this can give false hypo readings.
I no longer "feel" hypos so the CGM has "saved my life" a couple of times - the other night I went hypo (under 25) at about 3:00 am and it shut off the basal dosage - woke up at over 400 but at least I didn't go into a hypo seizure during the night. Apparently, Medtronic is coming out (in Europe) with a combined CGM/catheter product where you only have to have one device attached to your body. The only downside is you have to change both every three days. Here the CGM insert is about $60/insertion so I hope the combination will be less expensive. At least, here in Switzerland, both the CGM and the inserts are 100% covered by my insurance (after $600 copay that is usually used up my March).
Thank you very much for sharing your experience.... It seems that the pump you are talking about was just approved in Brazil. It seems to be great! How about the sensor? Have you ever get the "weak signs"? When you used the older pump, have you ever had a problem like the one I posted in the blog?
One thing which tends to always confuse me is that people seem to wonder if something is wrong with the sensor when they get a weak or lost signal. I suppose that could happen, but if the sensor is bad but the transmitter still has a good connection to the pump, I would expect some other error to be reported.
My experience is that the signal strength of the MiniLink transmitter is astoundingly low. This is what I would expect to be behind most "weak signal" alerts.
I am still taken by surprise that I can get a "weak signal" alert if my pump is not positioned almost next to the MiniLink transmitter. If the pump slips around my waist so that my body is blocking the signal path to the transmitter, I will get a "weak signal".
So I am wondering, just how close have you positioned the pump to the transmitter when this problem has occurred? The first thing I would consider when trying to diagnose this problem is whether anything ... anything at all ... is blocking the line of sight view of the MiniLink transmitter to the pump. Have you ruled out that sort of signal blockage as a possible factor?
-irrational John T1 LADA ~1980; 1st pump: Minimed 507; May 2013: Paradigm 723 + CGM
