It’s been 3 weeks since I started on my new Medtronic 670G insulin pump, 21 days since that life changing day I wrote about. So you’re probably wondering if it’s as great as it seemed to be after those first 2 hours. Honestly, no, it hasn’t been as smooth and hassle free as I had hoped. But after 3 weeks, I can definitely say it’s made an improvement to my life and my blood sugars and I’m so glad I made the switch.
Let’s start at the beginning. About 3 hours after posting how great the pump is, it kicked me out of the auto mode and I got stuck in an endless loop of it asking me for a blood sugar to calibrate, calibrating, asking for another blood sugar, processing, and then saying to wait. This went on for hours. Finally I called the medtronic helpline and spent an hour on the phone with a support person. After the hour, he still couldn’t fix it and I ended up having to take out the sensor which was working fine. It was a frustrating start.
After putting in a new sensor, things seemed to be going better for awhile. I was able to get back in the auto mode feature. My blood sugars have had way less drastic highs and lows, although I still find myself in the 200/250 range and the auto basal doesn’t seem to do much to bring it down. I’ve also had fewer lows especially those that are a result of correcting for the high spikes.
The alarms are a bit annoying, I find that even if I calibrate before bed, it still might need a calibration in the middle of the night, and I get awoken by the buzzing. I find that most often when I do get kicked out of auto mode, it happens during the night. I’ve also gotten stuck in that same loop of repeatedly asking for a blood sugar and not getting back into auto mode for a few hours a few more times. But luckily I haven’t had to take out any other sensors.
I had my 3 month endo appointment yesterday, and even after only having the new pump for 3 weeks, my A1c dropped half a point, so obviously it’s helping. I’m optimistic that the number will be even lower at my next appointment.
Is the pump perfect? No. There are a number of annoying features and issues that happen. But that comes with being an early adopter of a new technology. Am I glad I went through all the waiting and headache to switch? Hell yea! Even with its issues, I can see the positive effect this pump is having. And some of it is still user error. I’m sure my numbers would be even better if I remembered 100% of the time to prebolus my meals and improve other habits.
As someone reminded me, it’s not a magic pill (or pump) that’s going to suddenly make every blood sugar perfect. It’s still a piece of technology that has made advancements, but still requires effort on my end too. With that in mind, I’m eager to see what happens in the next 3 months.
Type ONEderful 
Thanks for the update. I go for my first training tomorrow. And I guess auto-mode starts next week. I’m expecting the start to be rocky but I’m hopeful it will improve a bit with each week.
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Ooo good luck! I think having realistic expectations help, but I think you’ll be really happy with it! Excited to hear how it goes for you 🙂
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How did you get the sensors that allow you to use the pump in “auto-mode”. I was told they aren’t shipping until February!
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Yea I’ve heard that too, are you part of the priority access program? They just came when I got my pump but I am a little concerned when it comes time to reorder more.
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I am not part of the priority access program. I think they said people in the program were getting the Guardian 3 sensors first. However, since they state that they are behind on production, you may want to give them a call and verify that you won’t run out.
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Yea, thanks for the heads up!
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Tx for the review. I wonder if when the system gets locked into endless calibration woes, can you resolve it by stopping and restarting the sensor?
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That’s a good question, I might have to try that if it happens again. It would be better than taking it completely out.
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Did you try this, and did it work? I have trouble disconnecting my sensor without ripping it out because of all of the tape.
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Yea, I have disconnected the sensor and then restarted it, but not to solve the endless loop, more to try to get a few extra days out of an expired sensor. I can sometimes get 1-3 more days out of it, but it will ask for a calibration every 6 hours not 12, and doesn’t do as well in auto mode. You definitely have to hold the clear part down when you pull it off, and then I usually just put new tape over it when I reconnect it.
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We too are stuck in the endless calibration-enter bg-exit auto-mode loop, on our 9y/o son’s 670g. According to Medtronic it’s a known bug. We have spent sleepless nights checking and entering blood sugars several up to nine times. The first week we changed sensors almost daily. I am wondering if you figured out what was getting you in the loop.
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Unfortunately I haven’t figured out why it’s happening. I’ve gotten to the point that I’ll either take it off of auto mode so that it stops alarming or even turn the sensor off completely if I just want to sleep through the night. But this is definitely not a solution because the whole point is to have the sensor working during the night to prevent those highs and lows. The couple pieces of advice that I did get is to not calibrate the pump after just waking up, to give it an hour or so because if you’re a stomach sleeper like me, it may need some time to readjust after being pressed on over night. Same thing if you’re asked to wait and enter a bg, I was told to wait closer to an hour than the 15 minutes and see if that helps.
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That’s interesting. Our son sleeps on his stomach sometimes and gets “artificial lows” because of it. I think I need to start keeping track of when Medtronic recommends I do or don’t calibrate. It started out that we could calibrate anytime there isn’t two arrows. Last night the tech support said only calibrate when there is no “active insulin”. Although, last night, he recommended “breaking the loop” by turning off the sensor and a minute later turning the sensor back on and reconnecting old sensor. That seamed to work for the time being. I am making it a point to call Medtronic every time in order to get this issue escalated and prioritized for a software fix. Not sure how that will work, perhaps a recall, but if it requires FDA approval, it may take a long time.
Thanks for sharing your experience! It definitely helps others.
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My experience has been about the same, wake up sometimes 2 times a night with same alarms. Wants BG or Calibration… Never goes the 12 hours..I go through spells of Sensors work perfectly one week to losing 2 the next, but Medtronic normally will replace them. Doctors office acts like no one else is having this issue, but after research I’m finding it’s very common..Sure they will get it worked out, but a little frustrating at this point…
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Regarding being asked to calibrate over and over: I pulled the battery out of the pump for few seconds. After that I was able to exit the loop. I forget whether it asked for one final calibration or not.
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There is no solution what so ever to the infinite BG/calibration loop. Changing sensors and trying over and over again is just a waste of time and resources. At this point, Medtronic needs to be legally obligated to recall all 670G pumps.
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The most discouraging thing about this pump for me is that you cannot enter a correction bolus in auto mode. That is pure nonsense. If a type-1 diabetic was on the design team, this would have been a feature. The pump does not even come close to handling corrections aggressively enough for my liking. If my blood sugar is 200, I would take 4 units of insulin (1-u lowers me 25 points). This pump will give me a fraction of a unit every 5 minutes then HOURS later my BS will lower. Not good enough. What I end up doing is entering a certain number of carbs then taking the bolus from those, but not eating. I know that fouls up the microbolus algorithm, and I do understand that is a problem. I have a degree in electrical engineering and I do statistics for a living. I am very well versed in how algorithms operate. But I don’t like how I feel with high BS so I bypass it anyway.
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Yes!! I completely agree, I do the exact thing, put in carbs like I’m eating to use as a correction Boris! And I agree that it is not nearly aggressive enough in the corrections, I usually end up sitting at 210-250 for hours in automode, that should not happen!
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Ugh autocorrect, exact same thing* and bolus not Boris* lol
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I have also been in the loop. What works for me is to NOT RECALIBRATE for at least an hour. (Ideally, recalibrate when the bg is kind of stable) And not give it a bg every time it asks, either. Let it exit Auto Mode. It is kicking itself out, not you, and will apologetically creep back into Auto when you decide to give it a bg and a command to do so. It’s an hour of very fitful sleep if this happens in the middle of the night, but at least it’s (usually) only an hour. Also, when the sensor thing was just not working out, I have gone out of Auto Mode for a few days. Don’t know if the algorithm reset or I just put the fear of God in it, but it’s much better now.
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