Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sam Iam on May 25, 2012 at 1:35pm

I'm inclined to agree, but plenty of people get in accidents and many survive due to their seatbelt. I have yet to hear about a single case of someone surviving due to Auto-Off.

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Permalink Reply by Terry on May 26, 2012 at 10:30am

If as many people used insulin pumps as drive cars, you would definitely have heard of episodes where auto-off actually helped someone. It's a safety feature that I think is valuable. I've flown on hundreds of airplane flights in my life and I've never had the oxygen masks come down but I'm glad that they're there.

My Ping is set for a 14 hour auto off trigger. I've never been bothered with nuisance alarms.

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Permalink Reply by Ladybug on May 25, 2012 at 1:37pm

the omni pod also has this feature...but the defult is that it is deactivated you have to know to turn it on.

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on May 25, 2012 at 3:49pm

Re the Seattle case, I'd be curious to know what percentage of fault was found to lie with the hospital and what percentage came from Medtronic?

Re the 12 hour safety device, unless I'm asleep, I don't think I ever go much more than 45 minutes without fiddling with something on my pump/ CGM? "what's my BG now?" "how much IOB?" "when's the next calibration?", etc.

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Permalink Reply by Timothy on May 26, 2012 at 12:35am

WOW you can actually go 45 MIN?
I think I might have P.R.O.C.D. PUMP RELATED OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER.
I think 30 min is my max.

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Permalink Reply by Shawnmarie on May 27, 2012 at 9:53am

They settled before it got to trial, so there was no ultimate finding of fault. A Seattle Times article states the hospital paid $3.2 million to settle, so Medtronic apparently paid $2 million if they were the only two parties to the suit.

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on May 27, 2012 at 11:35am

I'm sure there'd be several "groups"? I realized that the article was linked from the pltf's law firm. Not that that makes it suspect but it doesn't exactly show the details of whatever infighting went on between the various defendants "you didn't follow the manual" "we called, but you were in Spain" or, perhaps more sadly "well, she didn't call. she was supposed to call and didn't. We called her twice and never heard back from her so we assumed she was ok?" It's certainly a very sad situation but I'm still not convinced that the auto-off feature would have helped.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Goffe on May 26, 2012 at 5:45am

Thanks for the discussion. I just learned something new about my pump, and that is most definitely a good thing!

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on May 26, 2012 at 6:00am

Also, in terms of the Seattle case and other cases of "pump death" (as opposed to "dead in bed?" cases...although I would also wonder if this tragic case and other cases are more likely to occur during the night? I recall that when MrsAcidRock was pregnant she could get quite sleepy...) how long does it take? This is where both medicine and medical malpractice attorneys probably are as clueless as anyone who doesn't have diabetes at dealing with the layers of "curves" (food curves, insulin curves, activity curves, endogenous hormone curves...) and wonder what exactly happens to kill people? If a 14 hour button works for Brunetta and a 12 hour button works for Shayla and however many hours other people work is that "guaranteed" to work for AcidRock or Timothy? I would think that, in most cases, an agressive "misfire" of insulin might be able to kill you in a couple of hours if it really got it's teeth into you, was combined with activity and miseaten carbs or whatever?

Although, re my earlier question, I see the second artice notes the hospital to have paid $3.2/ $5.2 million, or 61%. I wonder how many defendants were "passing the hat" in the case or if it was just the hospital and Medtronics?

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Permalink Reply by Sam Iam on May 26, 2012 at 9:42pm

I'm sure it is very difficult, almost arbitrary to determine blame in hypoglycemia death cases. I find it very strange that every pump coming out now has some form of auto - off, which sounds like a potentially life-saving feature, yet comes disabled, and manuals say very little about it.

When I look up stuff about Medtronic or Animus(J&J), it seems as it they're constantly being sued, settling cases, recalling products, etc. Just the price of doing business. I guess that the losses they are taking cost them less than actually doing proper research and testing?

My educated guess is that 100-200 pump users in the US die from hypoglycemic related events / year. Could some of these be prevented if Auto-Off was enabled by default?

I don't know what is the proper setting for Auto-Off to be helpful. I was hoping to hear from someone with first hand knowledge. According to the 1971 Khan/Meyer study, 5-6 hours of continuous BG levels >20mg/dl with an average of 13mg/dl caused "regular production of neurological damage" in monkeys

http://www.jci.org/articles/view/31669#B12

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Permalink Reply by Jim on May 26, 2012 at 7:54am

"The pump was manufactured with an “auto-off”, a safety feature that turned the machine off if the user did not reset it after a certain number of hours. The “auto-off” feature saved the user from getting an accidental overdose of insulin."

I don't get that statement. It sure doesn't prevent an accidental overdose.

Even with that feature say I blackout and the pump shuts down after 4 hours of not touching the pump, there is still going to major damage.

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Permalink Reply by Sam Iam on May 26, 2012 at 11:17am

Even with that feature say I blackout and the pump shuts down after 4 hours of not touching the pump, there is still going to major damage.

How do you know?

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