Artificial Pancreas with current CGM technology?

September 21, 2009

My doctor has lately been telling me that Minimed/Medtronic is going to close the loop very soon now in providing an artificial pancreas based on today’s CGM and pump technology. Given my own experience, as well as the responses I’ve gotten to my post Continuous Glucose Monitoring with Medtronic/MiniMed Updated, I find this rather difficult to believe. I’m curious whether anyone reading this blog would actually trust their lives to CGM technology telling your pump how much to pump, removing yourself from the loop. However, this peer reviewed article seems to confirm his comments.

Personally, even if I have a way to override this, I would be very uncomfortable with it. For starters, I find the device to accurately track my blood glucose about 80-90% of the time at most. Then, there’s the issue of the 15-20 minute lag. Further, I sometimes have issues with slow insulin absorption, especially during long drives. Unless they combine this with their old implantable pump technology that delivers insulin into the renal vein and unless they find a way to continuously monitor blood glucose rather than interstitial glucose, I think I’m going to have to pass on this.

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Insulin Infusion Set First Day Blues?

August 28, 2009

I’m curious if anyone else is having trouble with high blood sugars on the first day of a new infusion set. I have noticed an issue with this, despite gradually increasing my fixed prime over time. I notice that on the first day of an infusion set it appears to take some time for the site to really begin to absorb the insulin.

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