Diabetes Technology Struggles - Part 2 (Downloading Data From Pump)

So here I am tonight with my new “fancy” USB cable and driver and I am ready to go. I load the driver, turn off the computer and plug in the meter, turn on the computer, launch the software but again, the software does not recognize the meter. Great, now another early morning call but I am going to have to wait until Monday for this one.

Next I try the pump. Animas sent along a disk with their software plus the IR Accessory Kit when they sent my pump. Again, I load up the software, follow the instructions on the accessory kit for plugging it into the serial port and think I am ready to go. I turn the computer on again, launch the software, suspend my pump and hit the download button. It looks for about 2 minutes but again does not download one piece of data. The little window switch from saying it was “connected” and it was “searching”. Plus, the progress bars never moved. I tired this three different times and then decided I needed to get my pump back on and call Animas on Monday too!

Next I notice that the Animas software will also download data from my bg meter, so I think maybe this software will be able to pull data from the meter. Nope, that didn’t work either!

I don’t think I am asking too much for these two machines that contain all the data to help me manage my “condition” (notice that I did not say Disease!!!!) to download their information into a program that I can use. I do have all the data manually contained in my fantastically designed Excel spreadsheet record sheet (yes, I know, I am very shy!) but I really want to see what my standard deviation is. I guess I am just going to have to play with the data in the spreadsheet and work out the calculations on my own. I hope my higher math education from oh so many years ago, comes back very soon! Wish me luck!!!

Diabetes Technology Struggles - Part 1

I finally have time to download data from my Animas 1250 and my bg meter (One Touch Ultra Smart). I figure this should not be too difficult - after all, I am pretty technology friendly, I help my friends set-up their computers, add hardware, etc. But for the life of me, I can not get one single reading to download from either device!

Of course I am doing all of this on a Saturday night so neither company has the "support" people available! If anyone else has had issues trying to download their data, please offer comments, or once I do figure all of this out, I can post what I have learned.

Let's start with my bg meter. When I purchased my pump for Animas they had a deal where I got the newest bg meter from One Touch - the Ultra Smart. I had been using the Ultra for many years, loved it and was very excited about the additional capabilities this new meter would offer me. As soon as it arrived, I started using it. I still had a month before I was going to get my pump, so I figured I would have lots of data to share as we started this new pump adventure. The night before my first pump appointment I load the software from One Touch (Yes, I know, I always tend to try to do this stuff at night – there might be a pattern here!) and I can NOT get the computer to recognize the meter. I am using an old serial cable that I had used successfully with my older meter. After several failed attempts, I call the 800 number to find out that I need to call them in the morning. So I do just that, I set my alarm for early the next morning, call and walk through all the steps I tried the night before and we still can’t get it to work. So they decide it is the serial connection and agree to send me a USB cable. Of course none of this happens in time for my appointment so I just manually pull the numbers form the meter.