Tag Archives: medtronic

Lenny

Lenny – FridayFind 5

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One thing (person?) we were all introduced to when I attended the Diabetes Advocates Forum at Medtronic last month was Lenny.

Lenny the Lion, that is.

We all know Lenny from his Carb-counting game app for iPhone, iPad and Android, but now he comes to life for children (of ALL ages) everywhere!

Medtronic worked with Build-A-Bear to make these special bears to help give courage to kids when learning how to use an insulin pump and insert sites. Every child, 12 and under, who go onto the pump for the first time receives their very own Lenny from their trainer. He has special little spots on him – tummy, thighs, upper arms, and butt, for learning specific places that they can insert pump sites into. He even has one on his paw for testing blood sugar! The spots are made of a denser foamy material that make it feel like a real insertion, not just hold on to the site once it’s in. The idea behind Lenny is to help kids learn to have courage, and to not let diabetes hold them back.

Lenny came with his own material too:

 

{How to register YOUR Lenny to receive a birth certificate so you your child can go play with him in Bearville!}

{Tips on Site Rotation and how often to change them}

{A few more quick tips}

{I put some of BabyK’s 3-6 month clothes on him. Poor thing was “nakey”. ;) }

And, from Medtronic themselves, here’s a fact sheet on Lenny:

{Click to see the full version - Used with permission}

One question that came up a lot on Facebook after a few of us posted the pictures was, “HEY! I want a Lenny! Where can I get one?” Well, my friends, he is available in the Medtronic Store, as well as a mini-version of himself that can hold an insulin pump inside (or Guardian CGM). I think this is great because there are those of us who are *slightly* over 12 (not pointing fingers at myself at ALL) who would want one but didn’t get one in pump training.

The only thing I wish he had (and actually it was mentioned to Medtronic during the forum) is his very own pump of somesort… and a CGM if the child is going to go on both. Some even mentioned Lenny having a sibling. I think Lenny needs to have a Lioness best friend – Lynn? Leona? Lenora? – who is diabetic too.. for the girls. Cause, come on… you know you would want to put a cute frilly outfit on her! (Possibly be a good way to show them how to “hide” their pumps? No?) This was actually brought up as a question in the forum – “would there be a girl version?”, and the answer was no. But I’m thinking that maybe, as with most companies, if the demand is high enough, they might consider it… so, would you like to have the choice of getting a Lenny or a Lenora? Let me know and I’ll pass it along!

Now, I’m off to shop for more clothes from Build-A-Bear for him, then snuggle and play with the app for a bit!

Suga-Rating for this FridayFind?

♥♥♥♥

4 out of 5

Disclaimer! I did receive Lenny at no charge to me from Minimed. They did not ask me to blog about him, nor feature him in a Friday Find post. The kit that was sent to me had everything as shown above, and did not include 6 infusion sets as mentioned in the online product feature (I’m assuming this is because I’m already a pumper and the 6 would be for the child to practice with during training).

Continuing to Step in the Right Direction

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This afternoon, I received an email that Medtronic has just sent out a press release regarding the ASPIRE study – the one where the worlds first insulin pump with LGS (Low-Glucose Suspend)! Results are awesome, too! According to the information, there was a 19% reduction in time spent below 70 when users were on this pump system. That is awesome, folks. A huge step in the right direction, in my opinion.

While it isn’t a cure, I do applaud these people who are working so hard to get better technology like this for us so that we can hopefully live longer, better lives, and maybe reduce the number of blue candles lit for lives lost due to hypoglycemia. And also, a huge thanks to those who are in the study, being human lab-rats for us.

:-)

If you’d like to read the release, you can find it HERE.

REVEL-ling In Disclosure Time Again!

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20100101-DSCN0667Yep, it’s that time again! It’s time to update my disclosure for all of you happy readers of the IGTS Blog, and I am so excited to share this with you.

Last month, I was given the opportunity to be a part of Minimed’s blog, The LOOP Blog. After speaking with the PR department (They are some super nice people!), sharing several emails, and getting some other legal stuff squared away, we now have a formal contract in place that states I will post once a month for them. In exchange for these posts, I have been provided a Minimed Revel insulin pump as well as a box of sensors free of charge, and are mine to keep. (I went with the clear one if anyone is curious! LOL!)

They do not reserve any rights to what I post here on my blog about their product, but they do, however reserve that right to what I send in for their blog (which is only fair). The blog entries I write for them will post on the 15th of each month, and I’ll let you know when they are up by posting them to Twitter and Facebook. My training for the pump is scheduled for today, so I will post here Monday about how it all went.

I am super excited to be a part of their involvement with social media and outreach to the DOC, and hope to represent both Medtronic Minimed and the DOC in a way that will make you guys proud.

First Solo Guardian Sensor Change… Sort of.

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MM SensorI had to do my first solo Minimed Guardian sensor change Friday, and I took the opportunity to take some pictures.

While I know there are ways to extend the sensor, my skin was getting itchy and sort of painful, so I decided it was best not to try my luck and go ahead and switch things out. After I got up and showered, I went ahead and placed the new sensor in my upper thigh, which, once again, gave me no trouble using the Sen-serter. (Shhh! I actually like the device! No gearing up to do a manual insertion – it does it for me!)  I made a make-shift Band-Aid to cover it using IV3000 and cutting a square to cover the sensor out of the paper and making a sensor sandwich to cover it (sensor, paper, then IV3000) but make it easy to remove and not pull the sensor out when I was ready to do the switch.

So, at around 1pm, I started to do the process of switching everything out. I was so used to Dexcom’s way of going into the menu to stop the old sensor and then start the new one when you were ready, that I went completely confused when I didn’t see a similar setup in the Guardian’s layout. I went back and referred to the manual and the online tutorial, but those ( I thought ) only applied to inserting your first sensor… not how to do a replacement “new” sensor. So what did I do? Yep – I called Minimed Customer Support and asked them to walk me through the process. I have to give them an A+++++ on this because the rep I spoke with was very understanding, patient, and very eager to help me and even double-checked with me to be sure I understood the process completely. He went above my expectations. He not only walked me through, but he made sure I understood the process well enough for the next change out as well. That’s what I call great customer service!

I knew that the area had been itching that night before and that morning, but I figured it was just about that time that I get rashes from glue adhesives and it would be fine as soon as I changed everything out. Well, when I took everything out and off, this is what I was left with:

Old MM Sensor Site

Not only did I have a rash from the glue, but somehow, my skin had been cut between where the clam-shell transmitter and the butt-end of the sensor meet. I’m hoping this won’t be a recurring thing with the sites and it was just that I had placed this one on my side. Granted, the user guide does state not to put the sensor in an area where your body moves a lot, so putting it on my side was not the best idea. But with being as pregnant as I am, we weren’t sure where to put the sensor during training since my stomach wouldn’t be safe right now, and I didn’t really want to strip down to put it in my leg either. So just a word of caution.. do what the book says… no insertion in “bending” areas!

BUT! On to the sensor itself. Setup went just as the first insertion. I recharged the transmitter, clipped it into the sensor that had been on my leg waiting for 5 hours by this time (I wanted to be sure to get it plenty “wet” and see if it helped with readings right off the bat), and tapped it down with IV3000. In the monitor, instead of having a menu option of “stop sensor” to stop the old one, you just go and tell the Guardian monitor to “start new sensor” and it begins the 2 hour warm-up period.

After the two hours, I calibrated and stayed pretty well on-track with no problems. I will say this though. Not only is it important to calibrate when your bg is steady and all that good stuff that they tell you, always clean your fingers. I know this should be a given, but I am very guilty of not making sure my hands are clean when testing. And how often do we fuss and complain about variability in CGMs verses meters when we’re probably testing with not-so-clean fingers? I know some of you out there are not as slack in that area as I used to be, but I have now made it a point to try to make sure I clean my fingers before testing, especially if that number is going to be used for calibration…. because what’s the point of calibrating if you’re going to give it a bad number anyway?

I’m scheduled for my second change out today. Debating on trying to extend it or change it. I’ll let you know on that one later.

Smile

And, just in case you wanted to see them, here’s some more pictures of what the sensor looks like (granted, this one is used, so please ignore the dried blood in places… I tried to clean it but some got left behind):

MM Sensor

If you look really closely at the sensor wire, you’ll see that it’s coated… I’m assuming that’s the difference between why you can take acetaminophen with their sensor and not with the Dexcom? Hmm.

MM Sensor

-Sarah