Just back from a short break in Cornwall. Lots of sea, sand and set changes (more on that later).
While away I had some slightly surprising and quite exciting news. A few weeks ago I caught sight of a thread on one of the forums I frequent that NICE (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence) were seeking patient/lay members to join the Guideline Development Groups for some of the diabetes guidelines, including Clinical Guideline CG15, Type 1 Diabetes in Adults.
Now I have good reason to like NICE very much. Because of the way the current guidelines are set out and worded I qualified for an insulin pump despite having a pretty decent A1c (because keeping it that way meant I lived my life constantly a little on edge about the possibility of a hypo). NICE guidelines lay down what is currently thought to be the best (and/or most cost-effective) approach in diabetes treatment. At the very least they give you an 'official' version of the sort of care you should expect that you can wave in front of any healthcare professional who still wants you to mash up bits of dead animals and drink your own wee to test for sweetness.
Back when I had my soapbox moment about the lack of carb counting education experienced by some people I reflected that the NICE guidelines were good, but perhaps a left just a little too much room for manoevre and were not up for review for some years. Here was my chance to put my money where my mouth was and get involved in the review process myself. It's a 2 year project with meetings approximately every 6-10 weeks. It involves quite a bit of reading and sifting of research papers in preparation for the meetings. There's a small payment to cover the cost of attending the meetings and travel expenses are paid.
So I filled in the application form, sent it off and waited. The week before last I took a conference call for the briefest of informal interviews and a few days ago I had an email to say that I had been appointed to the Guideline Development Group as one of two patient members. Yay!
Over the past few years I have hugely enjoyed getting to know lots of people with diabetes through this blog, various forums, Twitter, Facebook and all that. People whose experiences I hope to be able to feed into the review process along with my own.
I won't be able to share the details of any of the discussions before the guideline is published, but may ask you, dear reader, for your input/experiences in advance of some of the meetings to be able to bring wider view to the table.
Exciting times!
Posted by Mike on Monday, 13 August 2012
Posted by Mike on Tuesday, 17 July 2012
UK Food labelling consultation - have your say
Thanks to Dave (The Tangerine Diabetic) for his excellent writeup of Diabetes UK's Big Event (and also on Shoot Up or Put Up. Following his 'call to arms' I urge you to get involved with the public consultation on food labelling. The consultation ends on 6th August 2012. Have your say here right NOW!
Dear Sir or Madam
I have only today been made aware of the public consultation on the front of pack labelling as detailed here: www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/05/food-labelling-consultation-launched/
Along with approximately 2.5 million other people in the UK I live with diabetes. I am one of the 250,000 or so people with 'type 1', the autoimmune version of the condition. As you may know food plays a pivotal role in the control of both type one and type 2 diabetes and in some senses knowledge about food eaten is as important as any medication taken - even injected insulin. I can't live without insulin, but I can't live without food either! Injected insulin needs to be balanced against the carbohydrate in food (that's all carbohydrate, not just sugar). Getting the 'sums' wrong in either direction can lead to unconsciousness/coma/death on one hand or blindness/kidney failure/amputation etc on the other. Food and diabetes represents a balancing act with both short term and long term perils waiting in the wings.
You have to to a LOT of back-of-pack squinting as a person with diabetes. I've been living with Type 1 diabetes for over 20 years and in all that time I can truthfully say that not a morsel of food has passed my lips without first being considered and evaluated in terms of its likely effect on my blood glucose level.
I would urge the committee to add more meaningful information to the front or packs by including CARBOHYDRATE rather than just 'sugar'. Even better would be a Glycaemic Index/Glycaemic Load indication (an average figure relating to how fast a food converts to glucose in the bloodstream). Both for people with diabetes and for those without *all* carbohydrate converts to glucose in the blood. What is not well known is that sugar, though it is energy dense, does not convert particularly quickly. Many foodstuffs sold as being 'healthy' and 'slow release energy' are in fact substantially faster to convert to glucose in the blood than sucrose (table sugar). Most 'healthy' breakfast cereals, for example are particularly poor in this regard. While this is of acute interest to those of us who are 'playing at being our own pancreas' it is also very important to everyone. Foods which convert rapidly to glucose cause a burst of insulin release and contribute to weight gain and cholesterol imbalance whether or not one has diabetes.
Adding 'Carbohydrate' to pack fronts, and indicating how disruptive a food is in blood glucose terms could be crucial in slowing and/or preventing many hundreds of thousands of people's slide into Type 2 diabetes, and would enormously help the blood glucose control of people already diagnosed.
80% of the NHS budget for diabetes is spent on treating preventable complications - helping people with diabetes make better food choices, and helping others avoid developing diabetes in the first place offers a significant opportunity to save millions and millions of pounds for the NHS at almost no cost.
Kind regards...
Dear Sir or Madam
I have only today been made aware of the public consultation on the front of pack labelling as detailed here: www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/05/food-labelling-consultation-launched/
Along with approximately 2.5 million other people in the UK I live with diabetes. I am one of the 250,000 or so people with 'type 1', the autoimmune version of the condition. As you may know food plays a pivotal role in the control of both type one and type 2 diabetes and in some senses knowledge about food eaten is as important as any medication taken - even injected insulin. I can't live without insulin, but I can't live without food either! Injected insulin needs to be balanced against the carbohydrate in food (that's all carbohydrate, not just sugar). Getting the 'sums' wrong in either direction can lead to unconsciousness/coma/death on one hand or blindness/kidney failure/amputation etc on the other. Food and diabetes represents a balancing act with both short term and long term perils waiting in the wings.
You have to to a LOT of back-of-pack squinting as a person with diabetes. I've been living with Type 1 diabetes for over 20 years and in all that time I can truthfully say that not a morsel of food has passed my lips without first being considered and evaluated in terms of its likely effect on my blood glucose level.
I would urge the committee to add more meaningful information to the front or packs by including CARBOHYDRATE rather than just 'sugar'. Even better would be a Glycaemic Index/Glycaemic Load indication (an average figure relating to how fast a food converts to glucose in the bloodstream). Both for people with diabetes and for those without *all* carbohydrate converts to glucose in the blood. What is not well known is that sugar, though it is energy dense, does not convert particularly quickly. Many foodstuffs sold as being 'healthy' and 'slow release energy' are in fact substantially faster to convert to glucose in the blood than sucrose (table sugar). Most 'healthy' breakfast cereals, for example are particularly poor in this regard. While this is of acute interest to those of us who are 'playing at being our own pancreas' it is also very important to everyone. Foods which convert rapidly to glucose cause a burst of insulin release and contribute to weight gain and cholesterol imbalance whether or not one has diabetes.
Adding 'Carbohydrate' to pack fronts, and indicating how disruptive a food is in blood glucose terms could be crucial in slowing and/or preventing many hundreds of thousands of people's slide into Type 2 diabetes, and would enormously help the blood glucose control of people already diagnosed.
80% of the NHS budget for diabetes is spent on treating preventable complications - helping people with diabetes make better food choices, and helping others avoid developing diabetes in the first place offers a significant opportunity to save millions and millions of pounds for the NHS at almost no cost.
Kind regards...
Posted by Mike on Thursday, 12 July 2012
How's it hanging?
A few weeks back I had my first ever 'Pump Clinic'. I've been in for a few individual appointments, but this was the first (presumably annual) review of how things were going. I had a 'spare' HbA1c that I'd been given at my last 'Annual Review' and decided that this was a pretty good time to play my A1c joker.
I was fairly pleased to get a result of 49 (6.6%), though my meter averages suggested it might have been a little lower than that. I am beginning to think that the Contour Link's habit of reading slightly lower than my old Expert means that the conversion I used to use to estimate an HbA1c from meter averages is now a little off.
I also had a full lipid panel done (my GP review in March had mistakenly only ordered a total chol figure which is not much use in my book). I was happy to see that my total figure had fallen slightly to 4.7 and the splits remain reassuringly promising (for cholesterol nerds: Total chol 4.7, 1.9HDL/2.5LDL, Trigs 0.6). Fingers crossed my old ticker has a few more years in it yet.
I'm not sure if the folks at the pump clinic had just had a particularly challenging morning, but it was lovely to have my Pump DSN and the Consultant who heads the clinic saying such nice things. It may have helped that the basal tests I'd been asked to do in the weeks running up to the appointment (and had been in the process of doing anyway) had fairly spectacularly improved my levels. Artoo and I have been plodding along for 8 or 9 months now, and we seem to have hit a bit of a purple patch. The weeks running up to my appointment were pretty good, and while I've needed to do a little more tweaking since (darned basal goalpoasts on the move again) I've had another few weeks of really good results.
I think I'm beginning to see what all the pump fuss is about.
During the appointment there were slightly raised eyebrows when my sites were being checked, because of the way I was wearing Artoo. In the first few weeks of having a pump I got increasingly annoyed that the clip on the back only allows the pump to hang vertically on a belt. This meant that Artoo was sitting really high and frequently made his presence felt by digging me in the ribs. He went so far as to draw blood on one occasion when I was getting in and out of a car.
Almost all of the 'how do you wear your pump' comments I see on blogs and forums seem to be from women who smugly say how marvellous it is to be able to hang it from their bra. All very well for you lot with your copious cleavages and fancy undergarments, but not much use for me. For blokes it seems to be belts or pockets only. Like some sort of inviolable test of pumping man-dom. Since I have no room for anything else in my pockets I looked around for alternative clips. Medtronic do one described as a 'holster' (which appealed to my 8-year-old-Magnificent-Seven-loving self). I duly filled the irritating VAT/account creation paperwork, paid the exorbitant price and waited. Within an hour of eagerly sliding Artoo into it for the first time I knew that it was going to be hopeless. While yes, strictly speaking it does allow the pump to hang horizontally, it only does so with a sort of plastic 'back board' with the clip on which hangs vertically and is exactly the same size as the pump. Not only that, but the twisty mechanism is fairly loose so it's very easy to knock your pump into a wonky angle. Short period of tutting and grumbling. Original clip back on.
My solution (and the reason for the raised eyebrow) is pictured on the right of the lamentable 'holster'. It was a £1 scrunchie from Asda (other reasonably priced hair accessory retailers are available). Essentially a long loop of elastic with a cotton cover. Looped three or four times around my belt I can get Artoo to hang perfectly level by passing the clip through the loops. Because it's elasticated I can easily slide him left or right between belt loops, either more on the hip or more toward the front, to suit a seatbelt or whatever. Additionally the little bit of 'give' in the elastic means that I can tilt the screen toward me and read the display right-way-up without any 'having to get out of bag' complexities. Result!
I don't know if it is only me who had this struggle finding a the perfect method of positioning their robot counterpart, but if you are still struggling (and getting bruises around the waistline) I'd recommend a £1 scrunchie every time.
Where do you put yours?
I was fairly pleased to get a result of 49 (6.6%), though my meter averages suggested it might have been a little lower than that. I am beginning to think that the Contour Link's habit of reading slightly lower than my old Expert means that the conversion I used to use to estimate an HbA1c from meter averages is now a little off.
I also had a full lipid panel done (my GP review in March had mistakenly only ordered a total chol figure which is not much use in my book). I was happy to see that my total figure had fallen slightly to 4.7 and the splits remain reassuringly promising (for cholesterol nerds: Total chol 4.7, 1.9HDL/2.5LDL, Trigs 0.6). Fingers crossed my old ticker has a few more years in it yet.
I'm not sure if the folks at the pump clinic had just had a particularly challenging morning, but it was lovely to have my Pump DSN and the Consultant who heads the clinic saying such nice things. It may have helped that the basal tests I'd been asked to do in the weeks running up to the appointment (and had been in the process of doing anyway) had fairly spectacularly improved my levels. Artoo and I have been plodding along for 8 or 9 months now, and we seem to have hit a bit of a purple patch. The weeks running up to my appointment were pretty good, and while I've needed to do a little more tweaking since (darned basal goalpoasts on the move again) I've had another few weeks of really good results.
I think I'm beginning to see what all the pump fuss is about.
Almost all of the 'how do you wear your pump' comments I see on blogs and forums seem to be from women who smugly say how marvellous it is to be able to hang it from their bra. All very well for you lot with your copious cleavages and fancy undergarments, but not much use for me. For blokes it seems to be belts or pockets only. Like some sort of inviolable test of pumping man-dom. Since I have no room for anything else in my pockets I looked around for alternative clips. Medtronic do one described as a 'holster' (which appealed to my 8-year-old-Magnificent-Seven-loving self). I duly filled the irritating VAT/account creation paperwork, paid the exorbitant price and waited. Within an hour of eagerly sliding Artoo into it for the first time I knew that it was going to be hopeless. While yes, strictly speaking it does allow the pump to hang horizontally, it only does so with a sort of plastic 'back board' with the clip on which hangs vertically and is exactly the same size as the pump. Not only that, but the twisty mechanism is fairly loose so it's very easy to knock your pump into a wonky angle. Short period of tutting and grumbling. Original clip back on.
I don't know if it is only me who had this struggle finding a the perfect method of positioning their robot counterpart, but if you are still struggling (and getting bruises around the waistline) I'd recommend a £1 scrunchie every time.
Where do you put yours?
Posted by Mike on Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Face to face
Not so very long ago I would have run an absolute mile if someone had suggested getting together with other people with diabetes.
Biscuits and smalltalk among a group whose only common factor is a condition we all wish we didn't have? Er, no thanks. Death by PowerPoint covering "What food I think you shouldn't be eating" by someone who hasn't been living with my diabetes for 20 odd years. Hmmmm.
But the times, as Mr Zimmerman is keen to point out, are apt to change.
Yesterday I spent a very pleasant evening at the Bristol County Sports Club with a dozen or so others considering whether it might be quite nice to have a support group in the centre of Bristol. The fine folks in the regional office of DUK South West have people whose job it is to see if they can't get us all together once in a while and a new group in the city centre is being considered.
Having spent nearly 20 years flying solo as a diabetic, this blog pretty much covers the period during which I have begun to compare notes with others, both here, on a variety of forums and by extension, at occasional get togethers in real actual living and breathing life. The very thing that I would have run from for all those years has become a very real source of support, encouragement and information - both online and in person.
Earlier this month I wrote a guest post for Diabetes UK as part of Diabetes Week in the UK about the huge value (and frustration) of making very different sorts of diabetic connections. If you are still flying solo I encourage you to seek out some diabetic connections of your own - either online or in person.
What I found interesting last night was that although there were, I think, rather fewer there than the organisers had hoped for, we pretty much managed to cover all the bases diabetically-speaking: Two healthcare professionals, several type 1s, several type 2s, a couple of representatives of Diabetes UK, some newly diagnosed, some with decades of diabetic living, representatives of both 'Team Pump' and 'Team MDI' (including a woman who must surely be one of the first pump users in the UK with more than 13 years under her belt). Even more interesting was that people seemed more interested in just comparing notes and having 'a bit of a chat' than in necessarily having any kind of formal presentation/speaker. And as always seems to happen - once you put a bunch of people with diabetes in a room you just can't shut them up!
If you live or work in or around Bristol and would like to be kept informed about any future developments/meetings for this group please leave a comment below or contact Emily or Musetta from the South West office of Diabetes UK. They'd love to hear from you.
Biscuits and smalltalk among a group whose only common factor is a condition we all wish we didn't have? Er, no thanks. Death by PowerPoint covering "What food I think you shouldn't be eating" by someone who hasn't been living with my diabetes for 20 odd years. Hmmmm.
But the times, as Mr Zimmerman is keen to point out, are apt to change.
Yesterday I spent a very pleasant evening at the Bristol County Sports Club with a dozen or so others considering whether it might be quite nice to have a support group in the centre of Bristol. The fine folks in the regional office of DUK South West have people whose job it is to see if they can't get us all together once in a while and a new group in the city centre is being considered.
Having spent nearly 20 years flying solo as a diabetic, this blog pretty much covers the period during which I have begun to compare notes with others, both here, on a variety of forums and by extension, at occasional get togethers in real actual living and breathing life. The very thing that I would have run from for all those years has become a very real source of support, encouragement and information - both online and in person.
Earlier this month I wrote a guest post for Diabetes UK as part of Diabetes Week in the UK about the huge value (and frustration) of making very different sorts of diabetic connections. If you are still flying solo I encourage you to seek out some diabetic connections of your own - either online or in person.
What I found interesting last night was that although there were, I think, rather fewer there than the organisers had hoped for, we pretty much managed to cover all the bases diabetically-speaking: Two healthcare professionals, several type 1s, several type 2s, a couple of representatives of Diabetes UK, some newly diagnosed, some with decades of diabetic living, representatives of both 'Team Pump' and 'Team MDI' (including a woman who must surely be one of the first pump users in the UK with more than 13 years under her belt). Even more interesting was that people seemed more interested in just comparing notes and having 'a bit of a chat' than in necessarily having any kind of formal presentation/speaker. And as always seems to happen - once you put a bunch of people with diabetes in a room you just can't shut them up!
If you live or work in or around Bristol and would like to be kept informed about any future developments/meetings for this group please leave a comment below or contact Emily or Musetta from the South West office of Diabetes UK. They'd love to hear from you.
Posted by Mike on Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Dear Medtronic...
Apologies in advance for this really very dull, slightly ranty post on the intricacies of the user-interface on the Medtronic Veo.
I've been having a fairly turbulent time with the old 'goalpost chasing' diabetes game recently. For a month or two my BG averages were climbing... then I hit a patch of a few more lows than usual. At the same time I was in the run-up to my first ever Pump Clinic (which is tomorrow, more on that later) so I was preparing with a few basal tests. These confirmed what I knew already. My basal requirements had shifted. Again. Actually it seems they had shifted several times in opposite directions, and I was still playing catch-up.
This is nothing new of course, it happened to me all the time on MDI too. Before I came across the technique of 'basal testing' I would have attributed these chaotic readings as 'diabetes randomness'. These days, when meal doses and corrections start misbehaving for no apparent reason, a basal test is often my first port of call. With Artoo by my side I have the wonderful ability to quickly try a general raising or lowering of basal even before I have the opportunity to run a proper, detailed basal test. Illness is another time when these Temporary Basal Rates (TBRs) really earn their stripes. For a period of a few days, you might need 10%, 20% or 30% more basal than 'normal'.
For a period of a few days.
I'm not sure what the fine folks at Medtronic think people will use a TBR for, but it doesn't seem that they have considered that option. Well some of them clearly have, because you can set a TBR for up to 24 hours on the Veo. But... Inexplicably, someone decided that the pump should 'warble' at you every hour, day and night, that a TBR is set. If you set it to vibrate it makes several long buzzes. If you set it to short bleeps it's a series of three little 'pips'. Day and night. 24 hours a day. To tell me something that I already know. I have taken to wrapping Artoo in bubblewrap overnight to try to save Jane's sleep (I can sleep through anything, Jane is not so lucky).
It gets worse.
That pip-pip-pip is the only warning sound I get. If I glance at the pump screen there is a hollow circle too (I'll come back to that), but after, say 12-48 hours of illness/TBR you phase out the hourly pip-pip-pip during the day. If during that time you got a 'no delivery', 'low reservoir' or other alarm you would not even think to check what it was because your pump is just intermittently bleeping through the day anyway.
Now continuing with illness as an example... during that time you might generally need more basal, so you set a TBR at 120% for 24 hours. Then you do some activity (gardening? alligator wrestling? route march?) which in your experience usually needs a basal reduction. So now you want set a different (lower) temporary rate for a few hours, then return to your 120% TBR for illness (are you still with me at the back?). What you really want, is to be told when the TBR finishes, so that you can take action then and readjust. But your TBR will end with not so much as a bleep or warble. Nothing. The only time I want Artoo to tell me about a TBR (preferably with a different sound to the more 'serious' alerts) and he stays entirely silent.
The TBR chime is SO unhelpful. It contributes absolutely nothing to the pump user, and actually can potentially obscure/conceal a 'real' alert. I have no idea what is it doing there.
To add insult to injury, however loud those TBR warblings seem to be at 3am, they are pitifully quiet during the day. As a back-up notification on the Veo, there is a hollow circle at the top of the screen that tells you that an 'alert' condition exists. If it's very serious (eg the pump is in Suspend and no insulin is being delivered) this circle is filled with black. This means that at a glance you can see if there is any kind of problem with pump delivery. Very useful you would think... Sadly, again the overlap between 'alert' and 'condition' lets Artoo down. I can choose between up to three basal patterns. Currently I have them set for 'weekend' (waking later) and also for roughly 120% of normal which seemed to be where I settled during the holidays when gym visits fell away. When I'm on 'normal' I can check for the end of a TBR (or another alert for that matter) by looking for the cicle. But... the hollow circle is also used to show 'different basal pattern'. So basically during any weekend or holiday period the circle shows all the time on Artoo. And is therefore useless.
Now don't get me wrong. I think the Veo is a brilliant piece of kit. It is very easy to use and superbly intuitive. Oddly that makes these very strange/illogical/unhelpful UI decisions even more irritating.
So please, please, PLEASE! Medtronic, when you revisit the next version of the Veo: No pointless hourly TBR twittering (or at the very least make it optional so users can turn it off overnight). A different alert sound to identify the end of a TBR. A tiny 'A' and 'B' in a corner of the screen to denote alternate basal patterns. Oh, and the option to increase the volume of alerts so that they can be heard outside of a monastery/library setting would be very helpful too.
Tch! Some people are just never happy :)
I've been having a fairly turbulent time with the old 'goalpost chasing' diabetes game recently. For a month or two my BG averages were climbing... then I hit a patch of a few more lows than usual. At the same time I was in the run-up to my first ever Pump Clinic (which is tomorrow, more on that later) so I was preparing with a few basal tests. These confirmed what I knew already. My basal requirements had shifted. Again. Actually it seems they had shifted several times in opposite directions, and I was still playing catch-up.
This is nothing new of course, it happened to me all the time on MDI too. Before I came across the technique of 'basal testing' I would have attributed these chaotic readings as 'diabetes randomness'. These days, when meal doses and corrections start misbehaving for no apparent reason, a basal test is often my first port of call. With Artoo by my side I have the wonderful ability to quickly try a general raising or lowering of basal even before I have the opportunity to run a proper, detailed basal test. Illness is another time when these Temporary Basal Rates (TBRs) really earn their stripes. For a period of a few days, you might need 10%, 20% or 30% more basal than 'normal'.
For a period of a few days.
I'm not sure what the fine folks at Medtronic think people will use a TBR for, but it doesn't seem that they have considered that option. Well some of them clearly have, because you can set a TBR for up to 24 hours on the Veo. But... Inexplicably, someone decided that the pump should 'warble' at you every hour, day and night, that a TBR is set. If you set it to vibrate it makes several long buzzes. If you set it to short bleeps it's a series of three little 'pips'. Day and night. 24 hours a day. To tell me something that I already know. I have taken to wrapping Artoo in bubblewrap overnight to try to save Jane's sleep (I can sleep through anything, Jane is not so lucky).
It gets worse.
That pip-pip-pip is the only warning sound I get. If I glance at the pump screen there is a hollow circle too (I'll come back to that), but after, say 12-48 hours of illness/TBR you phase out the hourly pip-pip-pip during the day. If during that time you got a 'no delivery', 'low reservoir' or other alarm you would not even think to check what it was because your pump is just intermittently bleeping through the day anyway.
Now continuing with illness as an example... during that time you might generally need more basal, so you set a TBR at 120% for 24 hours. Then you do some activity (gardening? alligator wrestling? route march?) which in your experience usually needs a basal reduction. So now you want set a different (lower) temporary rate for a few hours, then return to your 120% TBR for illness (are you still with me at the back?). What you really want, is to be told when the TBR finishes, so that you can take action then and readjust. But your TBR will end with not so much as a bleep or warble. Nothing. The only time I want Artoo to tell me about a TBR (preferably with a different sound to the more 'serious' alerts) and he stays entirely silent.
The TBR chime is SO unhelpful. It contributes absolutely nothing to the pump user, and actually can potentially obscure/conceal a 'real' alert. I have no idea what is it doing there.
To add insult to injury, however loud those TBR warblings seem to be at 3am, they are pitifully quiet during the day. As a back-up notification on the Veo, there is a hollow circle at the top of the screen that tells you that an 'alert' condition exists. If it's very serious (eg the pump is in Suspend and no insulin is being delivered) this circle is filled with black. This means that at a glance you can see if there is any kind of problem with pump delivery. Very useful you would think... Sadly, again the overlap between 'alert' and 'condition' lets Artoo down. I can choose between up to three basal patterns. Currently I have them set for 'weekend' (waking later) and also for roughly 120% of normal which seemed to be where I settled during the holidays when gym visits fell away. When I'm on 'normal' I can check for the end of a TBR (or another alert for that matter) by looking for the cicle. But... the hollow circle is also used to show 'different basal pattern'. So basically during any weekend or holiday period the circle shows all the time on Artoo. And is therefore useless.
Now don't get me wrong. I think the Veo is a brilliant piece of kit. It is very easy to use and superbly intuitive. Oddly that makes these very strange/illogical/unhelpful UI decisions even more irritating.
So please, please, PLEASE! Medtronic, when you revisit the next version of the Veo: No pointless hourly TBR twittering (or at the very least make it optional so users can turn it off overnight). A different alert sound to identify the end of a TBR. A tiny 'A' and 'B' in a corner of the screen to denote alternate basal patterns. Oh, and the option to increase the volume of alerts so that they can be heard outside of a monastery/library setting would be very helpful too.
Tch! Some people are just never happy :)
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