Minimed CGMS

[5miraclez]

Does anyone here have one of these?
I have been waiting forever for something like this and now that they are finally available here,I am dieing to get my hands on one. My daughter was also just diagnosed and I think this would be a great thing to ease my mind about her having low sugars. Anyone here have one? If so how is it working? Has your insurance covered any of it?

Mom to 5 preemie miracles
type 1 diabetic for 28yrs
pumper for 16 years
daughter diagnosed 6yrs old 11/14/06 with type 1

[bkfkmc]

I do have one for my son. I have not gotten insurance coverage for it, although another member of the CWD forums just received coverage for her 2 year old daughter (Emmasmom). I do like it. My son was just sick with fever/high #'s all day and this helped tremendously! We have only had it a couple of weeks, but it is becoming something I don't think I want to do without. It is important to remember that it is different than blood testing, but once you get used to how it reads, it is very beneficial. The arrows that indicate trends is great. I can catch highs on their way up rather than waiting until the next poke. I have also been alarmed of a couple of night lows that I don't feel I would have caught as quickly. It isn't perfect though. I wouldn't put 100% faith in every reading it gives. It has a hard time keeping up with rapid changes, but you do still generally get the arrows which still give great information. This is why Minimed says to confirm with a meter check before treatment. There is a lot of room for improvement, but compared to nothing it is absolutely wonderful!

[5miraclez]

Thanks so much.
We are working on our insurance to see if they will cover the CGMS. There's no way I can afford to pay for it every 12 months and all the sensors for both me and my dd. We could pay rent for that amount. I did get approval from the insurance to get me the 722 but we have to come up with the 20%. I don't want to wait but we may have to wait until after the new year so we will reach our out of pocket next year. Hopefully by then we'll know if insurance will cover the sensors and CGM.

Mom to 5 preemie miracles
type 1 diabetic for 28yrs
pumper for 16 years
daughter diagnosed 6yrs old 11/14/06 with type 1

[bkfkmc]

Good luck! The first ones to get insurance coverage are paving the way for the rest of us! I was fortunate in that my parents paid the initial cost of the starter kit. I have planned to pay for sensors through our cafeteria plan next year. I don't know how we are going to eat since this will significantly decrease his take home pay- but we will have the sensors anyway! I hope your insurance company approves it quickly!

[rickst29]

There's no way I can afford to pay for it every 12 months and all the sensors for both me and my dd.
The companies can't say this, because it's "off-label" usage:

The guy I go to for MiniMed real-world questions, Nikos, recently announced (on the Yahoo CGMS Message Board) that his last Sensor lasted 23 Days!

That beats my personal Dexcom record, the most I've ever gotten is 20 days and about 9 hours. But my AVERAGE Sensor life is about 17 days-- so I'm spending at a rate of about $700 per year, that's WAY different than the $4250 which the FDA labeling requires them to describe.

Most people get a lot more Sensor life than the labeled "72 hours". But YMMV!

[5miraclez]

I'm already a step ahead there. I keep my pump site in for almost 2 weeks because they are just too darn expensive. I'm sure I've had some sites last even longer but I didn't keep track of how long. I was already planning on using the sensor for as long as possible. I'm not worried about it for me but my dd is more prone to infection and it won't work on her. She is skin and bones and has no fat on her so leaving something in even 3 days is going to be a stretch. I also can't believe I'll have to buy a new sensor every 12 months. You'd think they would come up with a way to recharge the batteries sor something. That's a lot of money to throw away.

[EmmasMom]

I have my daughter on the real-time pump and I'm thrilled with it! It does a really great job at alerting me to lows and highs, and because I can see the trend before it's a problem I can usually prevent them from ever happening at all! The readings are typically within 10% when she's in range and within 20% during a rapid drop or rise. We have had many exact readings too, and those always freak me out... in a good way ;) BG 134, sensor 134... no way!!!
We've had it for about a month now, and I think I would go crazy now if I didn't have it! My stress level is way down and I'm currently only testing about 1/2 as much as before. I have been able to make several basal and ratio adjustments and now have a beautiful flat line from the time she goes to bed until she wakes the next morning, (normally the scariest time for me). This has never been possible for her because she has such strong growth hormone spikes in the middle of the night, but I was always afraid to give too much insulin and end up with a low. Problem solved!

So far I've kept the sensors on for up to 9 days with great results. Since Emma is so little I don't want to push it too long because I don't want to risk infection, but the sensors definitely last longer than the approved 3 days. This makes a huge difference in cost and extra pokes!

We just won approval from our insurance company last week :D, so future sensor orders will be covered at 90%!!!! I still can't believe it!!!! The financial burden was going to be pretty huge, so I'm beyond thrilled about it, especially now that I'm addicted to the technology! I posted about this on the parents forum if you're interested in how we got it covered.

There are downsides. Two sites on a tiny body makes rotation challenging. Wearing a clear dressing on the skin for many days can cause a lot of skin irritation, if the dressing comes off the sensor probably will too, (we are using the very strong adhesive mastisol now to ensure that the tegaderm doesn't budge) The transmitter doesn't stay stuck to it's "sticky tape" very well, so we tuck it into her pump pouch or diaper. And of course the readings are not always within 20% of BG. There are times of very rapid change where it will take 10+ minutes for the sensor to agree with a finger stick, and there is always the possibility of a calibration error causing erroneous readings, (this has not happened to us with the real-time pump, but did happen when we used the Guardian RT).

Overall the benefits far outweigh the downsides, and much like the pump it takes some learning and adjusting to get it all just right.

Good luck!