Managing Diabetes as the Mother of the Bride

Gina McKelvey is a senior diabetes clinical manager at Medtronic who lives with type 1 diabetes and wears the MiniMed 670G system. While she has been successfully managing her diabetes for many years, her daughter’s recent wedding was an event that she expected would bring a few challenges to her staying within her target sensor glucose range. Today she has offered to share a little bit more with us about that exciting day and how her MiniMed 670G system helped allow her to enjoy it to the fullest!

As someone living with type 1 diabetes for more than 40 years, I understand as well as anyone that important life events not only cause me happy stress, but also “diabetes stress.” By “diabetes stress,” I mean anxiety about alerts, anxiety about alarms, anxiety about highs, anxiety about lows, anxiety about what clothes to wear that allow discretion but also easy access to my pump, anxiety about how to carry my blood glucose meter and rescue carbs…the list goes on and on.

My beautiful daughter, Lara, was recently married – and what a beautiful day it was! But as you can imagine, the preparation began long before the wedding itself and included purchasing an elegant mother of the bride gown. In the back of my mind, I was thinking about how important it would be to buy a dress where I could not only easily tuck my pump away, but easily reach it for bolusing prior to dinner at the reception. The first dress I tried on was the one I really loved, however, the plunging neckline was too low to place my pump in my bra, so I was faced with a decision about whether to return this gorgeous dress to the rack and keep looking or figure out another solution. My sister Pam encouraged me to say yes to this dress and use my creativity to find a solution for the pump issue – so I did!

I briefly considered using injections on the day of the wedding instead of my MiniMed 670G system. But then I thought to myself, why would I choose to use a complicated, labor-intense, archaic method over the simplicity of the MiniMed 670G system?

The adaptive algorithm of the MiniMed 670G system relieves a great deal of my diabetes management burden. It provides automatic adjustment of basal insulin delivery so that I spend more time in range —protected from more lows and highs¹. No way would I give that up.

Several weeks later, I was at the seamstress’ home to try on the dress for alterations, and I asked her if she could sew a pocket into the side of the dress where I could stow my pump for the ceremony and reception. She gladly accepted the challenge and got to work. She created a little detachable “pump pouch” that snaps onto the inside of the dress below my right arm. Perfect! Hidden but easily retrieved if needed.

As the big day approached, I started to consider how to minimize the risk of lows (with an open bar and champagne toast) and the risk of extreme highs (with wedding cake, macaroons, and carrot cake on the menu). It was incredibly important that I was fully present for this milestone event.

Finally, the wedding day arrived! I bolused at breakfast as usual and I dropped a little low a couple of hours later. This was easily treated with some orange juice. I then set a Temp Target when I arrived back to my hotel room and enjoyed a post-wedding snack of Goldfish and Grandma’s chocolate chip cookies — a thank you gift from the bride and groom to all attendees. Temp Target is a feature of the MiniMed 670G system that changes the algorithm’s glucose target from 120 to 150 for a specified period of time, reducing the risk of hypoglycemia.

To address the issue of minimizing alerts and alarms, I used the Alert Silence feature to silence All Sensor Alerts for a period of 8 hours beginning around 6 p.m. The Alert Silence feature in Auto Mode for MiniMed 670G system allows me to temporarily silence sensor glucose alerts. Even when using the Alert Silence feature, there are some critical alerts that are not silenced, so I still have confidence that an alert will occur for serious issues that need my intervention. I received zero alerts/alarms during the ceremony and reception.

So, that’s my Mother of the Bride experience with the MiniMed 670G system! It’s going to be a wonderful year!!!

We always love to hear wedding stories. If you’d like to share yours with us, send us an email at loopblog@medtronic.com.

¹Refers to Auto Mode. Some user interaction required. Individual results may vary.

*Gina is an employee of Medtronic Diabetes. Her thoughts and opinions are her own. Individual results may vary.

*The testimonial above relates an account of an individual’s experience using a Medtronic device. The account is genuine, typical and documented. However, this individual’s experience does not provide any indication, guide, warranty or guarantee as to the response or experience other people may have using the device. The experience other individuals have with the device could be different. Experiences can and do vary. Please talk to your doctor about your condition and the risks and benefits of Medtronic devices.

Important Safety Information

The Medtronic MiniMed™ 670G system is intended for continuous delivery of basal insulin (at user selectable rates) and administration of insulin boluses (in user selectable amounts) for the management of type 1 diabetes mellitus in persons, fourteen years of age and older, requiring insulin as well as for the continuous monitoring and trending of glucose levels in the fluid under the skin. The MiniMed™ 670G system includes SmartGuard™ technology, which can be programmed to automatically adjust the delivery of basal insulin based on Continuous Glucose Monitor sensor glucose values,and can suspend delivery of insulin when the sensor glucose value falls below or is predicted to fall below predefined threshold values. The system requires a prescription. The Guardian™ Sensor (3) glucose values are not intended to be used directly for making therapy adjustments, but rather to provide an indication of when a fingerstick may be required.

A confirmatory finger stick test via the CONTOUR®NEXT LINK 2.4 blood glucose meter is required prior to making adjustments to diabetes therapy. All therapy adjustments should be based on measurements obtained using the CONTOUR®NEXT LINK 2.4 blood glucose meter and not on values provided by the Guardian Sensor (3).  Always check the pump display to ensure the glucose result shown agrees with the glucose results shown on the CONTOUR®NEXT LINK 2.4 blood glucose meter. Do not calibrate your CGM device or calculate a bolus using a blood glucose meter result taken from an Alternative Site (palm) or from a control solution test. It is also not recommended to calibrate your CGM device when sensor or blood glucose values are changing rapidly, e.g., following a meal or physical exercise.  If a control solution test is out of range, please note that the result may be transmitted to your pump when in the “Always” send mode.

Pump therapy is not recommended for people whose vision or hearing does not allow recognition of pump signals and alarms. Pump therapy is not recommended for people who are unwilling or unable to maintain contact with their healthcare professional. The safety of the MiniMed™ 670G system has not been studied in pregnant women. For complete details of the system, including product and important safety information such as indications, contraindications, warnings, and precautions associated with system and its components, please consult http://www.medtronicdiabetes.com/important-safety-information#minimed-670g and the appropriate user guide at http://www.medtronicdiabetes.com/download-library

Tweet

 Email This Post  Print This Post