pump vent/woes

[AmberO]

My daughter is sick and stayed home today so my husband did her pump change this morning instead of this evening like we had planned. Which is a good thing that it happened in the morning I guess.

So he started priming it and it started fountaining insulin and wouldn't stop priming. He then unscrewed the battery case because he couldn't get back to the menu and turned the pump back on and it was still trying to prime. This was at 8:30 this morning. So he then put in a call to our Minimed rep and they weren't even in the office. They have 2 reps for a whole country and no 24 hour service! So he got ahold of them at 9am and she said they'd just order a new pump since this is the second breakdown of ours.

They have to order from Sweden and it won't be in till next week! And in the meantime they could've given us a 511 or we wait to get a new 512. So now we have the demo pump from our D. nurse. And I hadn't written down the newest basal rates from the pump - big mistake there as I was trying to remember what I had to give to my husband to program into the loaner!

Just venting, but it was just one of those days, you know?! :eek:

[faithe113001]

Did you call your local rep, or the 800 number on the back of the pump? The 800 number is 24hr service, they probably could have helped you quicker. Just a tip in case you have problems again. I've had problems with my Minimed too, I'm on my 3rd actually. The one I currently have has been going strong for over a year now, the other 2 lasted about 3 months each.

[AmberO]

The 800 number doesn't help me a bit since I'm not in the US. The main office for Europe is in Switzerland I think. Since this is the second breakdown, Minimed said they would ship us a new pump. They offered an older model but being Friday it wouldn't have reached us till Monday. The first time it broke down on us we had only had it about 3 months too!

We were frantic thinking we'd have to go back to shots until a new pump could arrive. My husband did tell the rep he thought they should have a couple of backup pumps at the special needs childrens ward at the hospital which would be a good option if this happens again and it's not office hours or on the weekend.

[faithe113001]

Ah, I see your dilemma. When mine broke down I got one from my educator, one that she uses for training, and used that until my new one arrived. It was so much better than going back to shots for a few days! It is very scary, I suddenly got a weird error message I'd never seen before, called the help line, and was told I'd need a new one!

Good luck with the new pump!

[AmberO]

Yea it's funny how something like this can send you scrambling. Didn't want to even think about having to tell my daughter she has to go back to shots until the pump arrives!

btw the Paradigm 515 is the newest version out right? How much does it differ from the older models? I know I read about it, but first hand accounts are always better. :D Not like we'll see it over here for awhile. This country may be pro-active in their care but they are still behind in the newest things sometimes!

[vkseek]

My daughters insulin pump as well malfunctioned twice. We were fortunate enough to have seen the Animas represenitive that day at the hospital during my daughters follow up appointment. They had given us a replacement utill ours was fixed. Which did not take very long at all.

[Ellen]

When my son first started pumping 10 years ago, we chose Disetronic because back then, according to European laws, the company had to provide the family with 2 pumps instead of 1, and Disetronic was a European company. We always had a backup.

My son has had wonderful success with the Smith's Cozmo, but I wish he had another one as a backup for when he goes off to college.

[faithe113001]

Providing you with two pumps is a great idea. I'll be heading off to college fairly soon too (I'm a junior in high school) and would love to have a backup!

Yep, the 515 is the latest. It's not much different than the 512 though, it just comes with a cord that you can hook up to the meter, which then accesses the pump, and downloads the settings. It's not of much use, to me anyway, it would great if it would download the sugars right from the meter.

[Ben'sMommy]

Ben's Minmed broke down once.
Same thing as you Amber. When we were priming it, it just went bananas.
Of course it had to happen in the middle of the night....
We were changing his set while he slept (he was 1yo) and panicked when this happened.
We live in Ireland so we tried calling the Irish rep - got his machine. Then we tried calling Ben's diabetic nurse - got her machine.
Eventually we had to call Minimed in the USA!!!!
They promised to get us a new one asap but for the time being we had to give him shots.
This was all at about 1am.
We got a new one very quickly but it was pretty scary. Going back to shots was so weird...

Since then we've had no more trouble. That was 1 year ago.

Fingers crossed it stays that way!!!

[AmberO]

Yea luckily we haven't had any more problems with it. She's going back to the states with my mom for June. Maybe I should give Minimed a call or email them to ask them what they can do in case something happens with the pump while there.

The first time it broke, they had to send it to the factory in CA to get it fixed. Nice to know they were able to respond to you even though the customer service is in the U.S. :)


That sucks that it happened at night! I would have been all the more frantic too .

[morechoff]

This morning at 4 am our daughters Animas IR1250 pump failed. It continued to give a priming error no matter what was done. Called Animas and they returned the call within 5 mins! The pump is new and Animas said they will send a new pump. First they are overnighting a temporary one until they get authorization to send a new one. From what I understand Animas pumps prior to Feb 2006 may have an issue with the priming sensor failing.

So far we are very pleased with the customer service that Animas has provided.

It is odd to go back to shots though....