VERY HELPFUL call with Abbott re: Navigator

Brenda: Since you are on a "first name basis" with Abbott, why don't you consider calling this in? I can even find the name of the woman I specifically spoke with and maybe she can start to build a case of antecdotal evidence of this affect.

 

Next time I call -- which I'm sure will be soon , I'll definitely mention that!

 

I'm not convinced yet. I ended up doing a forced calibration this morning. Last night it was just about 20 points high, but this morning it was 30. It was accepted immediately though and other times when we were using the Cozmonitor for the finger sticks it usually rejected the first time. I was pretty surprised that it was accepted and the numbers adjusted immediately. Melissa says she likes not having the meter on and even said it is more comfy to sleep without it on, so it will stay off. I am thinking of having her swim with it on Monday because she has been having too many highs after swimming from being without basal for too long. I never wanted her to take the meter off herself and change the battery cap.

 

Mary: Do you use the Navigator for regular fingersticks too?

I haven't done a forced calibration yet but I am finding the fingersticks are making a difference. If they continue to do so, I'll stick with that since there is still some question as to how much "old information" is lost to the CGMS when you force a calibration.

 

Just out of curiosity, could she have been sleeping on the transmitter when this happened? You have described exactly what has happened to us a few times recently and both times my son was putting pressure on the transmitter. I know Carol used to have this issue with both of her sons, too.

 

No, she ususally sleeps on her stomach with the back of her arm exposed. Went through the same thing with the help person the other night.

 

Yes, the boys used to have this problem more. They do a pretty good job of trying not to lay on it now. I did have one a couple weeks back it went out and he had the arm under the pillow and I guess the pressure did it. Readjusted and it went back to normal. I had to watch though. To keep it from alarms again and make sure it happened. Doesn't take too long. Maybe ten minutes?? I wish they could make them not do that. I think Dexcom and MM had the same pressure problem.

 

Nancy, We were just doing a few of them until the other day, and now we are doing them all with the Navigator. She has always used her Cozmonitor until now, but I would never go back to One Touch. We used BD with the Minimed pump and were one of the few that had good results from it. I check her meter against the lab as often as I can and with the One Touch it was never as close to the lab as with the BD and the Freestyle. She used to get a lot of errors because of the One Touch needing so much blood and timing out. Freestyle will wait till you add more if you need to. Part of the reason that we chose Cozmo was because we knew that Minimed was going to One Touch meters. The size of the drop that is needed makes a big difference and she never has sore fingers now because she never has to squeeze them. I just posted in your other thread about not wanting to carry two kinds of strips around. She carries enough stuff as it is. Calibration times can vary so you really would need to have the Freestyle with you almost all of the time. One of the reasons that I hesitated about a CGM was that I want to simplify like, not add more stress. When we change pumps, I will just keep her doing the bg's on the Navigator, unless we go with Omnipod and then maybe she would use both.

 

Well, if we continue to see that fingersticks with the built-in keep the CGMS more accurate, I may switch and only use the OneTouch for meal boluses and correction boluses,

 

Wow, that is great! I wish I could have read this earlier. I am extremely frustrated with our Navigator. Emily's readings are frequently WAY off now, but when she was on the study they were almost ALWAYS within 5 points of her BG fingerstick.

Well--when she was on the study, she was REQUIRED to use the Navigator for all BG tests. Now it all makes sense.

That kinda sucks for us because she loves the built-in Cozmonitor. And when she checks on the Navigator and her BG is close to 100 (her target), she "forgets" to enter it into the pump and do a correction. Those little corrections do add up and make her BG better.

I'll have to think of a reward system for her to use the Navigator for all BG checks AND enter the data into her pump. That is the ONE reason I'd like integration (I like having the receiver with me or at my bedside).

Regarding the forced calibration wiping out data: I suppose we could download quickly, then force calibrate? It seems like a lot of work, but I like having the data.

 

Andie: When they say "wipe data", its not that you can't download after that, its that the 2-3 previous days worth of "every minute" readings are factored into the reading that the CGMS determines and when you force calibration, it supposedly "wipes out" all of those data points that figure in to what the CGMS is reading.

 

Maybe you could talk to her about how much smaller and lighter the pump is without the meter attached. I thought that my daughter loved hers too, but now she says that she likes not having it on there. Little things like the pump always needing to be turned around when she goes to check bg, because the tubing is always facing away from her. She says it gets in the way less when she is sleeping also. I do understand the concern of not getting those little corrections though, and my rule is going to be that unless the bg number is in the 90's, she must enter it. Our goal is 90.

 

Another observation today. We were having trouble with the Nav getting "stuck" at around 240ish when he was actually much higher than that. Well, this morning he went high, the Nav. said 291 and fingerpoke was 302. Pretty close -- we've been doing all checks with the Navigator for several days now!

 

We stick in the mid-200s too. I think that if she's going up SLOWLY, that is tops up and creeps up maybe a little. If she "spikes", it seems to keep up ok. We did a fingerstick last night because it was stuck about 80 points below where she was. It caught up a little but not completely