Medtronic's CGM

This is part 2 of my discussion of the Medtronic CGM. This post is devoted to one of my least favorite warning signals — the weak signal warning.

The weak signal warning shows up when the pump is having trouble reading the transmitter. It is an important alarm. But, it seems that the transmitter is not very strong at all.

If I go to the gym (which is one of the more important places where I would want the CGM to work), I have to make sure my pump is as close to the transmitter as possible. I guess all the electronic equipment at the gym causes problems. Ugh.

I could live with that — but it also has problems in computer labs. Well, since I teach in computer labs, you can see that it would be important to me. Grrr.

Well, how about at home? It seems if my pump goes underneath me (when sleeping for example), it also gets a weak signal. Blah!

Now, if you look at the documentation, it would seem that a weak signal wouldn’t cause that much of a problem. It claims that it keeps up to 40 minutes of data which it would upload once it gets the signal. But, in my pump that isn’t the way it works. If it loses signal for more than 15 minutes, (and then get it back) it then goes back in the “Start” sequence. That means up to 2 hours of no glucose readings. Then it will need to be re-calibrated, again.

Perhaps it acts wacky because I have a Paradigm 722 and not a Revel. I really hope so.

• Part 1 of these articles