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My 670G Tips and Tricks

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It’s been about 2.5 months with my 670G pump. I’ve never had such an intense love/hate relationship with a medical device before. When asked if I’d recommend the pump or how I feel about, my honest answer is that I have very mixed feelings about it. And I think the most important takeaway is to have realistic expectations if you decide to get this pump. It is far far from perfect, but it has incredible potential. However, there are many and frequent frustrations, and for me, the pump was not only affecting my sleep (which obviously has implications for all areas of your life), it was also affecting my mood.

One thing I’ve learned over the past 17 years living with a chronic disease is that you have to make it fit into your lifestyle, not the other way around. That doesn’t mean you don’t make changes to the way you live, but it also means that to get through each and every day, you find ways to fit diabetes into the life you want to live. I have a few diabetes mantras, and one of them is “Diabetes does not define you.” My health and safety is always my first priority, but within the confines of this pump, I’ve found some tricks to get me through each day so that the pump is not negatively affecting my mood and sleep.

I’ll stop right here and say that what I’m about to tell you is not the way that the pump was designed and intended to work, so if you choose to try any of the tricks below, you do so at your own risk. I’m not recommending these for everyone, obviously you know what is realistic or not for your own life and circumstances. But this blog is for sharing my personal experiences so that’s what I’m doing.

My 670G Tips and Tricks

1.Be very careful about when you calibrate. Medtronic seems to have a lot of advice about this, don’t calibrate when you’re rising or dropping, don’t calibrate when there’s active insulin, calibrate about 4 times a day. I’ve also found that since I’m a stomach/side sleeper, I try not to calibrate when I first wake up even if it’s asking for one. I give it 30 minutes to an hour for the sensor to even back out. When I get into the cycle that says “Wait to enter BG” sometimes it helps to wait more than the 15 minutes, up to an hour even before entering the next BG.

2. Learn your sensor’s patterns. The sensor is supposed to last 7 days, however this has rarely been my experience. Here’s what my sensor timeline typically looks like:

  • Day 1: sensor is getting used to my body and usually isn’t very accurate for the first 24 hours.
  • Day 2-4: Sensor typically works pretty well, calibrations last close to 12 hours.
  • Day 5: Things start going downhill, either it will say change sensor or will need much more frequent calibrations.
  • Day 6-7: Hah

3. Adapt your manual and auto mode use to your sensor’s patterns. I’ve found that when the sensor is in auto mode, it requires many more calibrations, and that it is much quicker to not accept a calibration and eventually tell you to change a sensor than if it’s in manual mode. This makes sense. Since it’s giving insulin in auto mode, it wants to make sure it’s as safe and accurate as possible. However, if you want your sensor to get the full 7 days (or as close as you can), you can sometimes stretch the use by staying in manual mode for the last couple days. Here’s how it works:

  • Day 1: I keep it in manual mode for most of the day until the sensor is reading pretty close to my finger readings.
  • Day 2-4: Auto mode
  • Day 5: This is often where I get to the point that it tells me to change sensors. So now instead of cursing and getting mad, I disconnect the sensor from my body and charge it while turning off the sensor on my pump. Then I reconnect the sensor and “trick” the pump, telling it that it’s a new sensor. I then go through the warm-up period. For me, this works about half the time. If the sensor has gotten bent, then this trick won’t work, you’ll still end up changing it.
  • Day 6-7: Manual mode

4. If you feel comfortable, alert silences can be a great thing. I always calibrate my sensor right before bed, hoping it will last the 12 hours. However, if you’re close to day 5 and beyond, the sensor will often ask for a calibration 6 hours later, which for me is around 4 or 5 am. I was waking so frequently that my body started automatically waking up at 5 am every morning, and I would have trouble falling back asleep. So now, I make a judgment call each night. If I feel pretty sure that my blood sugar isn’t fluctuating too much, I sometimes choose to silence all alerts for the night. This way it won’t wake me up if it needs a calibration. I did find that it does still vibrate for low blood sugars. The pros: an undisturbed night of sleep. The cons: if it does need a calibration during the night, you won’t have any readings and if you’re in auto mode, it probably will eventually kick you out. So ultimately this comes down to what you’re personally comfortable with. I don’t silence the alerts every night, more so for the nights I just really want an undisturbed night. And I’ve always been able to feel my lows during the night so I don’t rely as heavily on the pump alerts. Then if I wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning, I’ll often calibrate anyway. But at least then it’s my body waking me up, and not my pump.

Everyone’s needs and experiences are different. My “tricks” might not work for you or fit your lifestyle or may not be how you want to be using the pump. But maybe they do help. Either way, I’m all about sharing and learning from one another.

Diabetes Blog Week Day 5- Tricks

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Diabetes Blog Week

Today’s topic: Let’s round out the week by sharing our best diabetes tips and diabetes tricks. From how you organize supplies to how you manage gear on the go/vacation (beach, or skiing, or whatever). From how you keep track of prescription numbers to how you remember to get your orders refilled. How about any “unconventional” diabetes practices, or ways to make diabetes work for YOU (not necessarily how the doctors say to do it!). There’s always something we can learn from each other.

For me, diabetes “tricks” are really just more safeguards that I’ve created for myself to cover for the fact that I’m actually not very organized when it comes to my diabetes. But you know what, it works for me and that’s what’s important.

So here are my diabetes tricks, which are essentially tricks that I play on myself so that I don’t find myself in hot water with no supplies left. Or ways to make the supplies I do have last longer.

Hide things from yourself. I don’t have an organized system to remind myself to reorder supplies. And while I know many companies offer automatic refills, it never matches up to when I actually need supplies so I end up stopping it. Basically, when my supplies look like they’re running low, I order more. But sometimes things don’t go smoothly. I forget to order. Or there’s a hold up with the pharmacy and they need my doctor to write a refill which takes longer. Or they mess up the prescription. And then days and sometimes even weeks pass and I start to freak out because I’m running out of insulin and I need it to live! But then I remember my trick, I hide an extra bottle of insulin from myself so even when I think I’m out, I really have one left! Genius! And I do this for all my supplies, I keep an extra bottle of test strips, a sensor, and a couple infusion sets separate from the rest of my supplies just for emergencies (or moments of forgetfulness)

Buy bulk. I’ve used many things to treat lows over the years, but my food of choice are packets of fruit snacks. They’re small and portable, they’re the right amount of carbs for most of my lows, you can eat part of a pack, they don’t raise my blood sugar too high and they work quickly, and they’re cheaper than glucose tabs and other snacks. So I go to Costco and I buy the box of 80 fruit snacks (which are usually only like $10-$12 in store for the box). But I don’t just buy one giant box, I buy 2 and sometimes 3. I keep one in my apartment, I keep one in my car, and I use one to refill all my stashes of fruit snacks in every coat pocket, purse, and bag. This way I can guarantee that I am never without a way to treat a low.

Find good tape. When it comes to my CGM, I wear that thing as long as I am getting accurate numbers, which I beyond the approved 7 days. But I never would be able to wear it as long as I do without the comfortable, sticky tape that I place over it. I currently use Hypafix, the 4 x 10 roll, and am a huge fan. Having strong, reliable tape is a must when you continuously have tubes and sensors stuck in/to your body.