Pump Parade: Medronic MiniMed Paradigm

After my post, “You Say Tomato, I say Pump”, I planned on another post titled: “You say Potato, I say MiniMed.” (Come on…It’s a little clever, right??) But instead I came up with what I think is a brilliant idea…THE PUMP PARADE!!! I get so many questions about our pump and why we chose it, it came to me that I should post about the many reasons we went the way we did. Information is power baby!

But in the interest of fairness, and honest curiosity, I asked two of my lovely friends if they would post why they chose their pumps. Today Hallie is posting on the Animas Ping and Laura is posting on the OmniPod! For those who are curious…I hope these posts answer questions for you and take the mystery out of pumps and how they work.

Hooray!! A Parade!!

So join me for the fanfare, because I’m ready to march march march!

Many choose the OmniPod because it is tubeless. (Awesomeness!) And many choose Animas Ping because of its remote. (So Cool!) What would compel someone to choose MiniMed?

Four words.

Easy. Peasy. Lemon. Squeezy.

It is just so simple to use. Very few button presses leads to less frustration and days added to your life. In the interest of full disclosure, we had an Animas pump for about 3 years. It was the same pump as the ping, but without the remote. Any pump is brilliant…and I’m not going to go into why we choose MiniMed over Animas…but I will say the most compelling reason for making the full on change to MiniMed, was ease of use.

So without further ado, I’m going to drive my point home and show you two videos featuring two amazing boys that I get to call mine. All my boys could bolus themselves by 5 years old. It is so nice just to tell them what to do…and know they can do it! With added safty features, like the pump always keeping tabs on insulin on board, I don't have to worry too much of the boys stacking insulin.

Now prepare yourself...you are going to hear my voice now...shattering any and all thoughts of normalcy that you have hereto before thought of me. (Who am I kidding, you all know I'm not normal...)





Hello adorableness!! On the front of the pump there are also two big arrows. You can set those arrows to whatever insulin amount you would like. I have B's set to 0.5 units of insulin, and I have L's set at 0.1 units. If we are on the go, and I want to give B a quick unit of insulin before he jumps into his snack all he has to do is push the arrow up twice and press act. It's called an easy bolus, and I LOVE. IT.

One of the questions I get most often is how do my boys bathe with a pump that is not waterproof. (It can get wet…trust me…it can get drenched…but it is not under warranty if it stops working because of damage from water.) SOOOOO we take it off when they shower or bath, or swim. It’s so easy, but since there is a lot of curiosity of how…here you go…my big J…



I love turning the basal down…I love not ALWAYS having to feed the boys in the wee hours of the morning. Each situation is unique, and for sure there are many instances where food is best. But this technique, when appropriate, is quick and easy. (Am I driving home the point that I am all about easy??)

My last two videos are of my sweet husband doing a set change. They showcase the a BIG reason why we love this pump. J has even learned how to do it. He puts it all together, but still prefers my husband to do the actual insertion.



Ok, so I said L's real name in there...let's just pretend you never heard it...and do me a favor and forget it....riiiiiiight now! And NO, you don't need to go back and listen to it again if you missed it...watch the next video instead...



OK...my husband can do this in his sleep. He has done it SO many times it's like brushing his teeth, he doesn't even have to think about it. When you do it for the first time it is going to take you a lot longer because you are going to have to actually think about what you are doing, but in time...it will be just as easy for you.

Another reason we love MiniMed is the Continuous glucose monitor that works with it. It is a separate site insertion…but it is wireless and “speaks” directly to the pumps. Graphs on the pump screen show trends…and arrows show if blood sugars are going up or down. Our CGM has been a dream!

MiniMed has just launched its brand spankin new pump called the Revel. And to my delight…Diabetes Mine has JUST posted a little bit about it! Please follow THIS link to read more about it if you’d like. But the main thing that I think my readers would find most important is that it has the smaller basal rates like the Animas does, AND when connected to the CGM it will now give you predictive alerts…telling you that you will be low soon…or high soon. Really cool!

The last thing I want to tell you all about is the customer service. They are there 24/7 and awesomely fast in responding to our needs! A little example…Last year, on a Friday at 8:00pm, one of the boys pumps stopped working properly. One call and we had a new pump on our doorstep before 11:00am the next morning. What a relief that they had our back! What a relief that I can call for any reason and they act like I am their most important call of the day. (Nope, I haven’t been paid one red cent to write any of this.)

I think I feel so strongly about it because I depend on it to keep my boys alive…and it is doing a dang good job of it. It is reliable…and it has people behind it who care.

And it’s easy to use. (hehehe I had to say it one more time. :)

So I’m going to end now. And remind you to follow the parade over to Hallie…to learn more about the Animas Ping. And over to Laura…to learn more about the OmniPod.

Now go on…get outta here! Learn something! And tell them Meri sent you!

(Reminder: I’m not a doctor, just a D Mom. Please talk to your doctor…or better yet, your Endo, if you would like to try some of the techniques you read about in this post.)