new discoveries

I supplied the venue for an Insulin Pump information session last night at my clinic The Calgary Centre for Health. We will sometimes open up our facility to different interest groups, providing a free space to host a seminar. I had boatloads of stuff I had to get through at the office, so spending a few extra hours at the clinic last night wasn't a bad idea. There was about 20 people, there mostly parents of diabetic children. Very few people get to spend an evening with a bunch of strangers but be intimately connected through a condition. It's really kind of comforting to be in the presence of so many that know the struggle, it's an affirmation that while wandering the house at 2am looking for test strips, infusion sets, batteries, juice boxes, and hail Mary's....there's someone close by doing the same thing. The mid-day yawn and eye rub could almost be the universal handshake of diabetes.

Animas brought in Lorraine Anderson, a certified Diabetes educator and fellow pumper. The brain trust of Ward Clark, territory Manager for Alberta, the great Joe Solowiejczyk, and Teresa from the Alberta Children's Hospital were among us in attendance. The content discussed was far more in depth than just how great pumps are for managing diabetes. We chatted about matching food to insulin blousing, how to really take advantage of combination boluses, pizza bolus, super bolus, all of these great concepts that many of us have heard of but been too nervous to experiment with. Lorraine did an amazing job of empowering the group to have some "fun" with diabetes, see if you can out-think the beast. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about insulin pumping, but found myself completely engaged and fascinated by the discussion. In fact, texting the discussion with Nicole to make sure we remembered the information. It was a really great discussion and to be honest, I found it exciting...which is so lame, but it's true! The opportunity to come at Cadence's disease from some different angles. We touched on a fair bit of topics that are frowned upon by some CDE's but in this discussion, we learned the reasons why we all do it incognito. For instance, pre-bolusing 20 minutes, overriding the pump recommendations based on instinct and experience, acceptable blood glucose departures 2 hours post meal, etc. It was great. The only issue I have this morning is that pile of stuff I had to do last night....is still sitting on my desk but i'm going to try and attack it from a couple new angles.

B.

Animas Ping...first weekend review

Cadence's new insulin pump arrived at the office on the weekend! The much awaited Animas Ping!

My review of "the new hotness":

The Animas Ping is Johnson & Johnson's newest product for diabetes, updating a great previous model in the animas 2020. Cadence has been pumping with the 2020 since March of 2008 and we've never regretted our Animas decision for a single day. Awesome company lined with an incredible device. The Ping was a bit of surprise release as the blogs, boards, and tweets all predicted that an Animas/Dexcom integrated product would be the next release but that has lost quite a bit of attention. My intuition tells me that they can't find a way to integrate an infusion set with a CGM sensor from a cost effectiveness standpoint and also how to make them last/fail at the same rate. Likely a hurdle that can't be solved in the short term, but I digress.

The Animas Ping is a swank new sparkle pink color (or green, or silver, or blue etc), and a bit bigger, probably 1cm longer than the 2020 predecessor. Aside from a small size difference, the guts of the pump are relatively unchanged. The display and readout are similar with some additional customizable features with sounds/alerts than what was offered on the 2020. One thing that Animas neglected was to add the IOB onto the home screen. This was a much talked about miss that the bloggers/boards discussed 2 years ago regarding the 2020 was that you had 3-4 screens to go through to get to the Insulin on Board. As any pumper or parent of one in our case, the IOB is just as valuable than seeing the current basal rate, especially for temping.

The magic of the Ping however, is the wireless function of the OneTouch Ping glucose meter. You literally have a remote display of the pump in the glucose meter. You can bolus from the meter without having to fish the pump out of yours or your running like mad toddler to push buttons. She can continue to run laps around the kitchen with a crayon coloring the drywall while you sit in a chair and casually bolus for her dinner....so to speak :-) . For those operating their own pump, the big advantage is discretion in that you don't have to reach into your clothing to remove the pump, you can do everything via the meter.

EXCEPT: change your basal rate, or temp your basal! That's right, you can bolus insulin but not change basal rate unless you have the pump in hand. (Yes, you read that correctly.)

With Cadence, we probably temp her basal rate at least 1x day if not more depending on sugar and activity. To not include this option onto the Ping meter can only be described as an EPIC FAIL. So we still have to fish the pump out while holding her down to tweak the basal rate. I'd love to know the reasons behind leaving this feature out but likely it was a time to market decision. Hopefully this is fixed soon with a software update. When we ordered the Ping I didn't even research as to whether this would be included.

This massive gaff in R&D judgement aside, I can't even begin to describe how much we love the new Ping. Proof in the pudding was at Cadence's Halloween party, her pump was buried under layers of princess costume and we never had to interrupt her play sessions other than for a quick blood test. The discretion that being "wireless" with the pump provides is just so valuable. Especially now as Cadence realizes that she's a bit different from everyone else. More proof of that was at each house she trick or treated at she followed the treat with "I don't wike candy..." and walked down the steps. It was hilarious to say the least. For her social circle though, for the other kids to not see a device connected with tubing to her body 24/7 is valuable enough for her self esteem to warrant the cost of the upgrade from the 2020.

Overall, this is a tremendously good product that is long overdue. The Ping pump carries the same great information and user friendliness found in the layout and function of the 2020 pump. The Ping blood checker works as well as any other OneTouch meter and the menus are easy to navigate and the setup between the pump and meter is very intuitive.

For those on the fence regarding an upgrade, in my opinion a worthwhile one indeed. For those contemplating a pump for yourself or your child, the Animas product is as good as they come!

B.

Ping me.

We quietly passed over Cadence's 2-year anniversary of diagnosis, July 19th. Funny how life-changing that day was. Now with a 2.5 year old and a 13 week old baby, we just let the day go by without any of us realizing it. A sign of moving on?

Speaking of moving on! We're pretty stoked at Casa de Kane. Cadence is going to be getting a new pump this year!

Cadence started pumping on March 31, 2008 and her life forever changed for the better. We, almost instantaneously gained better control, ensured a better life for her, and as a parent felt empowered to effect her diabetes in a meaningful way. I still can't emphasize the importance of this technology for a parent of a diabetic child.

We went through so much research when deciding what pump to get Cadence. Fortunately we chose Animas for Cadence and we still couldn't be happier with the decision. They have finally released a new product called the Animas Ping. What we now can do is deliver boluses of insulin, tweak basals, etc without having to fish her pump out of her clothing. As she runs around at a mile a minute, chasing her with the tubing hanging out just isn't working anymore. We're excited to have wireless control.

Had we gone the Medtronic route...we'd still be over-promised and under-delivered.

B.