Veo users – can you turn off the temp basal alarms?

[Alison]

I think we have a couple of people who read Shoot Up and use a Medtronic Veo, including my esteemed co-writer, so I’m appealing to your great wisdom. The beep/vibrations on the hour every hour when I have a temporary basal rate set are doing my head in. Have any of you worked out a way to stop them happening? If I set a temp basal for 5 hours, I know I’ve set it for 5 hours, I don’t need to be reminded every hour on the hour.

I don’t think it’s possible to stop those alarms, but it’s worth an ask in case some genius has worked it out!

[Tim]

I thought it was every half hour? Anyway, I don’t know – they don’t really bother me

[Cecile]

Mmmm…so if @tim says half an hour, maybe you can set the frequency at which you want to be reminded…which for you would be 5 hours?

[Alison]

I can’t see how I would do that, I can set my temp basal in 30 min intervals but the alarm goes off on the hour every hour which means i don’t like using it overnight because it wakes me up. Plus, I like to know that when my pump alarms its for something important, like I’m high or low, rather than just to irritate me!

[lizz]

Yes – that drove me bananas too. I did enjoy the facility, on mine you can set temp basals but they are sort of permanent – ie you can choose 4 different ones but the parameters have to be put in. ‘It takes about 3 minutes to change the parameters, but it’s much quicker to be able to just set the length you want each time. And you can decide how long you want the ‘reminder’ interval to be.

Have you tried asking over on the Diabetes UK website? Or sending a mail to Minimed?

[Tim]

There is an advantage to it though – if you’re going for a walk in the country and you have a temp basal, the pump will vibrate at, say 4pm, you can then cock your head and say “ah, four o’clock!” When asked how you know that you can then make up some story about the sun or hearing distance church bells. It’s not all bad!

[Alison]

But with CGM Tim, the pump alarms and you go “Hark, am I high, low or simply being reminded of the time for no good reason?” whilst on your countryside walk, which by the time you’ve checked the pump to make sure you’re not about to drop down hypo makes the “I calculated it using the angle of the sun and the mountain” slightly less convincing!

I’ve asked on http://www.insulinpumpforums.com who have a lot of people on Medtronic pumps and they don’t think its possible. Damn, I was hoping I’d missed some secret trick to turn them off but sadly not.

[Annette A]

At least the Accutrend temp basal alarm is just a beep, on the hour every hour. The alarm is very different, and I can sleep through the beep cos its quiet (and frankly, a waste fo time – I know I’m on temp, and you alarm when its over, why tell me every hour as well?)

[lizz]

@Alison, have you mentioned this to Minimed customer services? It seems a major flaw to me… after all, you are on a temp rate to avoid having to stay up all night checking blood sugars, what’s the point if you have to be woken every hour anyway?

That’ my only crit of the pump really, that it presumes you are an idiot and is a bit over-controlling, ie all the questions all the time.

[Tim]

In other news, what do you use five hour basals for? Just out of interest.

[Annette A]

Personally, a 3 hour walk. (1 hour before I go, 3 hours on the walk, 1 hour when I get back. Works for me.) Obviously not overnight (I dont tend to somnambulate that much!)

[Alison]

Same as Annette. Or when doing a day of DIY. Nightime tends to be when hormones/drugs mean stuff is all to pot and I need to ;

[Author]

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