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T:Slim pros & cons

Tom1982

Tom1982

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent
The daughter has been offered a trial of a t slim for a month. What are people’s experiences with them on here? Worth a try?
 
there are a few current and past users of the TSlim.
You may get a more useful response if you confirm whether you are looking for HCL or not.
 
helli said:
there are a few current and past users of the TSlim.
You may get a more useful response if you confirm whether you are looking for HCL or not.
Click to expand...
Ah good point, yeah she will be using it in a closed loop configuration with her G7. They’ve offered her a trial due to the ongoing skin reactions with the Omnipod cannula material. The wider range of cannulas could solve the issue.
 
My daughter is on her second, and she loves it. Easy to use, she used it as a basic pump for a month, then with basal IQ only for a couple of years (does low blood sugar suspend but does not react to highs) and then eventually upgraded to Control IQ which is the full HCL mode. She’s happy with G6 at the moment but I think it works much the same. She finds it easy to use, you can download an emulator to your phone to have a play and see how it works. The HCL was amazing at first, not quite so good now but it probably needs some tweaks and as she’s an adult now I don’t have anything to do with it any more. The refill procedure is a bit fiddly but my daughter got the hang of it fairly quickly and has never complained! It’s rechargeable, but you have to take it off for baths/showers anyway so just give it a top up charge then. We think it’s a good system, but it’s the only HCL she’s ever used so can’t really compare. If you’re concerned about tubing, the pumps she had when she was first diagnosed were tubed and we found it easy enough to hide it under clothing so that it doesn’t catch on things.
 
Sally71 said:
My daughter is on her second, and she loves it. Easy to use, she used it as a basic pump for a month, then with basal IQ only for a couple of years (does low blood sugar suspend but does not react to highs) and then eventually upgraded to Control IQ which is the full HCL mode. She’s happy with G6 at the moment but I think it works much the same. She finds it easy to use, you can download an emulator to your phone to have a play and see how it works. The HCL was amazing at first, not quite so good now but it probably needs some tweaks and as she’s an adult now I don’t have anything to do with it any more. The refill procedure is a bit fiddly but my daughter got the hang of it fairly quickly and has never complained! It’s rechargeable, but you have to take it off for baths/showers anyway so just give it a top up charge then. We think it’s a good system, but it’s the only HCL she’s ever used so can’t really compare. If you’re concerned about tubing, the pumps she had when she was first diagnosed were tubed and we found it easy enough to hide it under clothing so that it doesn’t catch on things.
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Ah that’s great cheers. Do you have to enter a basal profile? How long does the pump take to charge?
 
Tom1982 said:
Ah that’s great cheers. Do you have to enter a basal profile? How long does the pump take to charge?
Click to expand...
I charge mine whilst I’m in the shower each morning. This is enough time to recharge to 100% each day. Battery drops around 10% in 24 hours.
You need to set up a personal profile which takes care of basal, bolus, and additional bolus to counter high blood glucose- basal factor, correction factor, carb ratio. All can vary throughout the day.
You can have multiple profiles if necessary eg a sick day profile or exercise profile if you have a standard regular exercise routine.
 
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Tom1982 said:
Ah that’s great cheers. Do you have to enter a basal profile? How long does the pump take to charge?
Click to expand...
Yes you have to enter a basal profile, also carb ratios, and I think it needs the person’s weight as well, as this helps it to calculate how much insulin it can safely deliver at once. Not sure how long it takes to charge but I think it’s pretty quick.
 
Sally71 said:
Yes you have to enter a basal profile, also carb ratios, and I think it needs the person’s weight as well, as this helps it to calculate how much insulin it can safely deliver at once. Not sure how long it takes to charge but I think it’s pretty quick.
Click to expand...
I’d assume the basal profile should stay roughly the same as our Omnipod one? Do you mind me asking what your daughters time in range is roughly?
 
martindt1606 said:
I charge mine whilst I’m in the shower each morning. This is enough time to recharge to 100% each day. Battery drops around 10% in 24 hours.
You need to set up a personal profile which takes care of basal, bolus, and additional bolus to counter high blood glucose- basal factor, correction factor, carb ratio. All can vary throughout the day.
You can have multiple profiles if necessary eg a sick day profile or exercise profile if you have a standard regular exercise routine.
Click to expand...
That’s a pretty decent battery life. Does it deteriorate much over time? It also sounds more versatile than I thought. How do you get on with the tubing? Can you shorten it or is it a set length?
 
Tom1982 said:
I’d assume the basal profile should stay roughly the same as our Omnipod one? Do you mind me asking what your daughters time in range is roughly?
Click to expand...
Yes I would start off with the same basal profile and ratios as you have now and take it from there. Daughter’s time in range was 91% at one point, I suspect it’s not quite so good at the moment and could do with some adjustments, but I don’t have anything to do with it any more!
 
My kid is on his second and loops with g7. He had options when his pump was up for renewal but chose to stay with tslim. He was on auto soft cannulas for ages but now uses the steel ones instead.

I hope you find a solution.
 
Sally71 said:
Yes I would start off with the same basal profile and ratios as you have now and take it from there. Daughter’s time in range was 91% at one point, I suspect it’s not quite so good at the moment and could do with some adjustments, but I don’t have anything to do with it any more!
Click to expand...
“Don’t have anything to do with it anymore” now that is the dream!!! One day maybe :rofl:
 
Thebearcametoo said:
My kid is on his second and loops with g7. He had options when his pump was up for renewal but chose to stay with tslim. He was on auto soft cannulas for ages but now uses the steel ones instead.

I hope you find a solution.
Click to expand...
Do you just have to push the steel ones in? Sure I read that somewhere.
 
Tom1982 said:
That’s a pretty decent battery life. Does it deteriorate much over time? It also sounds more versatile than I thought. How do you get on with the tubing? Can you shorten it or is it a set length?
Click to expand...
I’m on my second Tslim and there was no noticeable degradation in the 4 years I had the first one. Also the addition of integration with the G7 hasn’t made a big difference to the battery life.
There are multiple options for infusion. I use trusteel with a long tube.
 
Tom1982 said:
Do you just have to push the steel ones in? Sure I read that somewhere.
Click to expand...
Yes, which sounds brutal and the steel is quite long but it is thin. The autosoft you have to squeeze the applicator and there can be a bit of a jump scare when it releases so neither way is without issues.
 
There are multiple tube-lengths depending on what sets suit. There are angled Teflon ones with a self-serter that are almost identical to Mios on Medtronic (Autosoft 30 if I remember right)

The tSlim allows you quite a bit of control over the algorithm (in that you can set basal profile, carb ratios and correction factors as you need them through the 24hrs). Plus you can have multiple profiles - I had one that acted as a fake TBR.

You can also suspend the pump for a timed amount eg for a 0% during exercise. Though that does silence some alarms if I remember right.

The algorithm itself is fairly gentle and conservative on the whole. And you have to watch it a bit on hypo recovery because it comes ‘back on line’ earlier than other systems and can react to rapidly rising BG from a hypo treatment.

I had great results with it, though I did have to put in quite a bit of effort, and the ‘low suspend wasn’t fast enough for me to leave it to its own devices.

Overnight ‘sleep mode’ was spectacular though. I just got used to waking up at 5-6ish every morning, and almost never woke to a hypo alarm in 4 years.
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
There are multiple tube-lengths depending on what sets suit. There are angled Teflon ones with a self-serter that are almost identical to Mios on Medtronic (Autosoft 30 if I remember right)

The tSlim allows you quite a bit of control over the algorithm (in that you can set basal profile, carb ratios and correction factors as you need them through the 24hrs). Plus you can have multiple profiles - I had one that acted as a fake TBR.

You can also suspend the pump for a timed amount eg for a 0% during exercise. Though that does silence some alarms if I remember right.

The algorithm itself is fairly gentle and conservative on the whole. And you have to watch it a bit on hypo recovery because it comes ‘back on line’ earlier than other systems and can react to rapidly rising BG from a hypo treatment.

I had great results with it, though I did have to put in quite a bit of effort, and the ‘low suspend wasn’t fast enough for me to leave it to its own devices.

Overnight ‘sleep mode’ was spectacular though. I just got used to waking up at 5-6ish every morning, and almost never woke to a hypo alarm in 4 years.
Click to expand...
Cheers for the detailed reply. It sounds really positive and I hope one of the cannulas suit her better. My only real concern is the tubing. She is like one of them Tazmainian devil things and if it can be ripped out or broken she’ll find a way! This poor pump ain’t going to know what’s hit it!
 
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