Good Morning Everyone! I (my T-Slim) was rather disruptive in a very important business meeting on Friday and I am hoping that someone here may have some advice. I misjudged the amount of insulin remaining, and I wound up running out of insulin during this meeting. For the next hour, my pump alarmed every 3 - 5 minutes to tell me what I already knew…
Does anyone know how to acknowledge the alarm so that the alarm snoozes for a user selectable time period? Or better yet, is there a way to completely turn off the alarm?
I read in a post from a few posts where @Dennis would fill a new cartridge and set it aside to be deployed when the pump stopped insulin delivery from the current cartridge. While I agree this is a great idea, and I intend to use this technique, I have situations like the one above where I simply cannot leave a meeting, or I am not at a convenient/sanitary location where I feel comfortable “breaking the seal”.
Thanks in advance for any comments, suggestions, recommendations.
I set an alert to sound when I got to the last 10 units and tried not to let it get much lower than that (you may be able to set it for less but that is what I was comfortable with). I don’t know about turning off that particular alert - it’s so critical in nature you might not be able to stop it short of changing the cartridge, but Tech Support or your trainer might be able to advise you.
Robert @rpalmer0614, I hear you and understand your situation well; I once called for a “recess” at a BOD meeting so I could attend to my pump [not your issue], I didn’t hesitate to do finger-stick checks during meetings.
A work-around, go into “device Settings” in the Options menu, select “sound Volume”, and in both Alert & Alarm, select “Vibrate”. Where empty is a critical Alarm [not an Alert], this like the severe low alarm for BGL below 45 mg/dl, it may not be able to be silenced.
Thanks @wadawabbit and @Dennis! I will contact my trainer and reply to this thread so that we all know what our options are. My guess is that you both are right in that this alarm cannot be silenced. A snooze option that is longer than 5 minutes would be a nice option
This alarm cannot be totally silenced as you experienced. I sure wish you could as i jave experienced it can be rather obnoxious some times, i finally reset my low cartridge alarm for a higher level to make sure i got enough warning to prepare. I also have learned that ignoring it doesn’t pay off for me so I have had to adjust to this as my medtronic pump was not nearly as bad to deal with in a quick change situation, i woukd also love to hear if you come up with any unique solutions as i struggle with bad timing on my cartridge changes frequently.
The only thing I can think of, if you’re desperate to silence the thing, is to shut it down. That means when you start it back up again you have to re-enter some stuff. I don’t remember exactly what because I’ve only done it once or twice. (It does remember your profiles, however.) Probably not the greatest thing to do but it does work.
Shutting down the pump requires plugging it in and holding down the power button for several seconds until it goes to sleep. That’s based on some notes I wrote a while ago - please check the details for yourself - and if you’re in a meeting you may not have your power cord available.
I read in a post from a few posts where @Dennis would fill a new cartridge and set it aside to be deployed when the pump stopped insulin delivery from the current cartridge. While I agree this is a great idea, and I intend to use this technique, I have situations like the one above where I simply cannot leave a meeting, or I am not at a convenient/sanitary location where I feel comfortable “breaking the seal”.
I used @Dennis’s method all the time: I filled a cartridge at home and took it with me when the one I was using was getting down to the end, so it was ready to go when the time came. If you’re not comfortable starting a new insertion site you could always use the same one until you get home. Some pre-planning may be necessary so you don’t have to exit a meeting, but on occasion I have excused myself for a few minutes to take care of that and no one was the wiser.
There’s really no good reason to delay replacing the cartridge: even if you could silence the alarm we can only go so long without insulin before the numbers start creeping - or shooting - up; and if you get distracted and forget… Better to develop the habit of changing out when you get the warning - or even before. No one wants to waste insulin, but hopefully your prescription gives you some cushion to work with.
I have had this same problem with the t slim and I simply act like I’m going to load a new cartiridge. Even though I’m not at that time. The alarm stops/silences when you go to options, load.
Things like these end up being one of the most frustrating parts of being diabetic for me, when it feels like your tools are working against you and you have no options for making them behave differently. The legal team would rather 1000 of us have a hopeless annoying situation like this than deal with 1 lawsuit over someone accidentally snoozing their empty cartridge alert. Hopefully there’s a fix for when something unexpected happens…
The good reason is you don’t, 100% of the time, have what you need to change it in the next 5 minutes and it’s not an oxygen alarm. Not that you should, but you can go hours, maybe even days, before it becomes an emergency. So the option to silence it for up to 2 hours would be much more reasonable, so that it doesn’t interfere with life when you have to wait to get home before you can do anything about it.
Currently trying Annie’s suggestion to pretend I’m loading a new cartridge.
Welcome to the forum @Tephros ! I’ve been off Tandem for a while and haven’t read through this whole thread lately so I don’t recall if alerts that frequent mean the pump is out of insulin, but I imagine that would be the case. My numbers shoot up after just a couple of hours off insulin so I don’t let too much time pass once I get an alarm.
I used to fill a spare cartridge to take with me when a change was coming up, so I would not have to go through the whole fill process while at work or otherwise away from home. I switched to Omnipod last year so must carry my bottle with and go through the whole full process wherever I may be, as you must insert the fresh pod within an hour of filling.
So actually I do have what I need with me, can usually get to it within 5 minutes, and generally try to change before my pump stops delivering because it is empty. I’m guessing that’s the reason for such frequent alerts but the answer may be somewhere in the thread.
Welcome to the forum - I’m looking forward to your contributions!
Thanks Dorie! Yes it is better to change it right away, but I was more alluding to the fact that life happens and this alarm every 3 minutes isn’t really necessary for safety and is clearly disruptive. The thing to avoid is somebody just completely forgetting about it and going a long time without insulin. A snooze on the alarm is still okay for that and would be an improvement in quality of life.
That said, yes Annie’s ( @Ambryan ) suggestion did work. The pump continued to buzz every once in awhile, but the alarm switched from no insulin to incomplete loading, and so it didn’t beep constantly and wasn’t a problem for the next 1.5 hours until I could get home to change it.
