Paulbreen
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
I am sending back the pump so I thought I would share some of my experience.
The pump has completely changed my Diabetic journey, I have gone from 1-2 Hypo events per day to only one in the last 3 months, my time in range has dramatically improved from 30-40% up to more than 90% TIR and my HbA1c reading has also improved almost to a normal person’s value of 48 at my last test in December 2020 which has been in the.
I have been using the Meditronic 670G CGM system and while the therapy works well for me the equipment does not work well and after much research there are other systems available in the marketplace that my diabetic team had made no mention of, I suspect there is some sort of collaboration with my Diabetic practice and Meditronic. This can happen here in Germany all though it is supposed to be illegal.
So on with the review, these are my personal experiences and while using this equipment for the last 6 months or so, I do think it is a good system for someone who has a lot of time on their hands to attend to it's demands it doesn't fit well with someone who is working in a busy environment.
I would like to say that the bad points below are just a reflection of my own experience and I hope it gives someone considering the Meditronic pump and CGM an accurate picture of the pump and CGM experience.
The pump has completely changed my Diabetic journey, I have gone from 1-2 Hypo events per day to only one in the last 3 months, my time in range has dramatically improved from 30-40% up to more than 90% TIR and my HbA1c reading has also improved almost to a normal person’s value of 48 at my last test in December 2020 which has been in the.
I have been using the Meditronic 670G CGM system and while the therapy works well for me the equipment does not work well and after much research there are other systems available in the marketplace that my diabetic team had made no mention of, I suspect there is some sort of collaboration with my Diabetic practice and Meditronic. This can happen here in Germany all though it is supposed to be illegal.
So on with the review, these are my personal experiences and while using this equipment for the last 6 months or so, I do think it is a good system for someone who has a lot of time on their hands to attend to it's demands it doesn't fit well with someone who is working in a busy environment.
I would like to say that the bad points below are just a reflection of my own experience and I hope it gives someone considering the Meditronic pump and CGM an accurate picture of the pump and CGM experience.
- Meditronic Apps all the “meditronic apps do not work I have spent some time trying to use these apps and I have found them to be incomplete or not compatible, I have spoken to various members of forums and groups I am a member of about their experiences and they have all found the same issues.
- Meditronic sensors are closed source so it means it is not possible to use any third-party software or apps that my help with diabetes management, for example connecting to a smart watch to give early warning of blood glucose levels going low or high.
- Meditronic 670G can only work with small adjustments to your Basal Insulin and cannot react to any blood glucose going high.
- The pump has too many alarm conditions, for instance, when I am going low the pump alarms at 4.6 then my BG goes to 3.9 and then rises again then as my BG goes high again it alarms again.
- Sensor change is a terrible experience and can take more than 8 hours to complete on some occasions. The pump goes into a “ACTIVE INSULIN UPDATING” mode quite often even though there has not been any active insulin in my system for hours and this has no time limit on how long it takes to complete.
- Finger prick testing when changing sensor, the system asks for a calibration every 6 hours for the first 24 hours of operation and then every 12 hours in the next days until the pump is around 5 days in use then the requests for BG tests gradually increase in frequency until the sensor finishes.
- Sensor life, the sensor begins to deteriorate on the fifth day and starts to ask for calibration every few hours until the sensor either stops working or its lifetime finishes. My rate for sensors finishing their expected life is quite low with quite a few finishing early.
- In general the pump therapy is very good, and I can feel the benefits in my overall health but the Meditronic 670G does not meet the 3F’s of Fit, Form and Function used by engineers to determine the quality of an engineering solution.
