Setting up an alternative basal rate on Combo pump?

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heasandford

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Type 1
I cant seem to find how to set up an alternative basal rate - not just changing the one I'm using, but setting up a whole new one to use that I can switch to without having to go through every hour again. When I try to do it on the meter I can find BASAL RATE SELECTION and choose an alternative with no levels set but can't find a way to set those levels.

Can anyone help? I'll keep trying in the meantime!
 
After Basal Rate Selection on the menu you get to Basal Rate Programming 1 , Basal Rate Programming 2 etc, all the way up to 5. Presumably no. 1 is the one you are using, and you use Basal Rate Programming 1 to adjust that. To set up an alternative just choose the next unused one and enter all your values. I think there's a way you can copy down from one time zone to the next if you have the same rate for several hours but I can't remember what it is, I found it quick enough to enter it all manually! Then don't forget to save it, and then you use Basal Rate Selection to switch between them. Unfortunately I don't think there's a way to get it to switch between them automatically, we use no.1 for school days and no.2 for weekends and holidays, but I always have to remember to change it over!

If you don't get all 5 basal rate programming choices on your menu I think you have to go to Menu Settings and change it to Advanced. Hope that helps 🙂
 
It all sounds as though it makes sense but I just didn't seem to be able to do it! At last I realised I had to STOP THE PUMP before I could make the changes on a NEW setting, but I didn't have to on the existing one!

Thanks so much for your help, greatly appreciated!
 
Just ROFL - how long have you had it now? There never was a way to 'copy from Basal Rate 1' and then just adjust the fine tuning to whatever you want although it CAN be copied via the infra red do dah plugged in to a computer if you know how - I know this because I had to have mine replaced DSN copied it from the record on their software of my basal rate from downloading it previously. Ditto the Insight - as I was accidently given a demo model to begin with, and the Roche rep did it when they handed the new one over.

It's not something one can do in 2 minutes. I freely confess I'm not known for having the patience of Job - hence if they interrogate all my pump history over the years, they'll find one helluva lot of TBRs! (any number for 24 hrs ….)LOL
 
I have 2 rates on my Medtronic 640. When I am at work & a normal one 🙂. Good luck
 
I was so frustrated because I've had three nightmare nights of ridiculously high bgs (like gradually rising to 16+ and waking with that!), despite adding small amounts of corrections all night long I just couldn't get it down. Last night it was perfect and I switched back to the original basal selection before 3am as it would otherwise have gone low. No reason for any of it. Don't you love diabetes sometime.
Now I've learnt how to do it at least I've got the option!
 
Perhaps some unidentified item in the deepest recesses of your anatomy, decided to get inflamed about something?

Gawd knows - but I seriously wonder despite the 'Omni-everything' reputation whether He would - since I'd like to believe he never consciously designed the auto-immune system to fail - but there again in evolutary terms (ie survival of the fittest) - me and you shouldn't even be there having this conversation - at which point I realise there are still a LOT of things in Heaven, earth and diabetes, that Horatio never dreamed of in his philosophy so I'm not likely to either, and think of something less puzzling instead

Back on topic - how utterly mind-numbing frustrating it is when we can't do something we obviously NEED to do, so admit failure and take advice (and the solution is always dead easy under these circumstances) so the problem disappears into thin air now you've admitted what you couldn't do on your own?

So I'll join you now, cos it's completely baffled me and I'm ashamed!

How the hell do you turn an Insight pump OFF and not have the stupid thing beep at you incessantly every other second from then on? (until you turn it back on of course)
 
Yes, sharing the problem on this forum has certainly been one of the things leading to 'most improved' category for me!

As far as I am aware the same beep also occurs on the Combo when switeched off - you're not allowed to be off......!
 
There is a way to turn the "stopped" beep off, but I can't remember how to do it, it's probably somewhere in the deepest recesses of the manual! I was advised not to turn it off, because if you should have a problem e.g. when you are asleep, you can't be unaware that the pump isn't working, or forget to start it again. My daughter has been saved by this a few times! At hospital check up last week they took all her equipment to download the data, the pump has to be stopped to do so, and sometimes they forget to start it again. Daughter just plugged back in and we carried on talking to the doctor to then be interrupted with a beep - oops, pump wasn't restarted, let's sort that out now! Imagine if we weren't aware and she hadn't noticed until she tried to bolus at lunch time! She's also had occlusions at night, the alarms don't wake her up any more, she just turns them off in her sleep, and then only realised that there was a problem when she got up for the loo and the pump was beeping. So I've given up any thought of turning the beep off, even if it is annoying when you know the pump is stopped!
 
Well hopefully I'll be able to keep it on operating as normal when I have my op (approx. 45 ins, GA) but if not I'll just turn it down to minus 90%, and let it drip same as I do when showering.
 
Could you not just set it to an unused basal rate, so that it's still running but pumping a grand total of 0.00? It won't beep then!
 
It doesn't appear to be obvious how to Sally - might have helped if I'd had a proper handover when I had it perhaps and actually been shown. Nothing about the Insight is obvious - not like the dear ole Combo. Although maybe there isn't a choice to swap it, cos I only have basal prog 1, programmed?
 
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