Today, I’m happy to bring you another guest blog from Kristin Baker, a CGM Product Specialist here at Medtronic. Last time we heard from Kristin she talked about Optimizing Diabetes Management using 3 types of CGM alerts. This time Kristin talks about decreasing CGM alerts with the use of CareLink Personal software. Let’s hear what she has to say.  Read More >

For most men and women, their wedding day is one they’ll never forget. It takes a tremendous amount of planning to make this day special, and maybe even a little more so for those with diabetes. Today, we share with you a special guest post from professional golfer and pumper, Carling Coffing.  Read More >

Like me, you probably have a diabetes supply drawer (unofficially) labeled with “I have no idea what to do with these.” We recently asked a question to our Facebook community that read, “Spring is almost here! Are you planning to do some spring cleaning with your diabetes supplies?” and it sounded like the community had some of the same questions I had about best practices for disposing of these supplies. So what are you supposed to do with different diabetes supplies?  Read More >

Today we welcome back our favorite sky-diver with diabetes, Michael Craig, who’s here to share some exciting news – he’s moving across the country for an exciting new job with the JDRF! Of course, new jobs are stressful and moving is a hassle for anyone. But there’s even more to think about and plan for if you live with type 1 diabetes. Hear how Michael is managing it all and join us in congratulating him on such an exciting time in his life!  Read More >

Spring is almost here, which means that it’s time for Daylight Savings Time! On March 10, most of us here in the U.S. “spring forward” our clocks by one hour. The time on your insulin pump/continuous glucose monitor (CGM) determines your personal settings (including basal and bolus rates), so you’ll want to make sure it is always up-to-date.  Read More >

Remember Celine Parent, Lindsey Burch, and Lindsay Gossack? Not only do they have living with diabetes in common, they’re also inspirational insulin pumpers and Medtronic Global Heroes! Along with these blog posts, you can hear more stories from the 2012 Global Heroes in this video.  Read More >

As some of you may know, we’ve teamed up with the Diabetes Hands Foundation for a series of Live Interviews with Medtronic leaders, broadcast over at TuDiabetes. If you missed the first two, be sure to check out the archives of Dr. Francine Kaufman and Lane Desborough. For the third event in the series, we’re thrilled to have Dr. John Mastrototaro discussing a very popular topic – the road to the artificial pancreas.  Read More >

With diabetes, it’s extremely important to know where your blood glucose is, where it’s going, and how fast it’s getting there. Today, Kristin Baker, a CGM Product Specialist here at Medtronic joins us to talk about three types of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) alerts to help with that information – Threshold, Predictive, and Rate of Change alerts.  Read More >

From time to time, we get the question “Does anyone working at Medtronic live with diabetes or have family members who do?” The answer is a very big yes! We have many people here for whom the Medtronic mission hits especially close to home. One of those people is Lane Desborough and, in addition to his job as a diabetes dad, he has a very exciting role here at Medtronic.  Read More >

Recently, we’ve been asking our customers about which diabetes management topics they’d like to learn more. Interestingly, most of the topics you tell us you want to discuss are around continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) – predictive alerts, when to calibrate, what’s next in CGM technology, etc. So, when Dr. Kaufman agreed to do a Live Interview on TuDiabetes, we jumped at the chance to ask her to share more about this popular topic.  Read More >

When Alex Karanikitas was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, his mom Kristine wanted to move his bed into her room at night she was so worried about middle-of-the-night lows. Then they found the mySentry Remote Glucose Monitor. Watch the video below to hear how the Karanikitas family heads off those nighttime lows today  Read More >

It is not uncommon to walk through the halls during work at the diabetes business unit of Medtronic and recognize insulin pump tubing coming out of someone’s pocket. Today, I want you to meet Cheryl, a person with diabetes for 26 years and Medtronic employee for the last six years. She is also a busy wife and mom of two kids who finds passion in encouraging women with type 1 diabetes during pregnancy and motherhood.  Read More >

Every holiday has its traditions. Here at Medtronic Diabetes, we wanted to partake in one of Halloween’s most common traditions – pumpkin carving… Medtronic style!  Read More >

Today, I’m excited to introduce Lori Schlosser, mother of 14-year-old Noah, who lives with Type 1 Diabetes. In today’s guest post, Lori shares with us some of the challenges that parents face when raising a child with Type 1 Diabetes as well as some tips she has learned since Noah’s recent incorporation of CGM technology into his daily diabetes management. If you have tips of your own, we’d love for you to share them with us in the comments below!  Read More >

I’m excited to share with you our first guest blog from action sports enthusiast and professional skydiver, Michael Craig. You may remember him from his interview with The LOOP back in June. Michael is definitely an inspirational guy, always going for it, and not letting life circumstances prevent him from following his dreams and doing what he loves; something that anyone can admire. Today, Michael shares some of his history with us, as well as his experiences after 30 days using CGM.  Read More >

I would like to take a moment to first thank everyone for the wonderful diabetes management tips submitted on our Insulin Pumps and Continuous Glucose Monitoring blog by Dr. Francine Kaufman. As you know, everyone who submitted a tip was automatically entered in to a drawing to win 1 of 10 copies of her new book, Insulin Pumps and Continuous Glucose Monitoring: A User’s Guide To Effective Diabetes Management.  Read More >

With summer in full swing, there’s been a lot of talk lately about diabetes camp, especially over on the Medtronic Diabetes Facebook page. So today we’re thrilled to welcome Jennifer LeBlanc, a Diabetes Clinical Manager here at Medtronic, to share some of her camp memories and what the experience meant to her. We’d love to also hear about your memories, so feel free to share in the comments!  Read More >

Editor’s note: We were excited to hear that our very own Dr. Kaufman worked with the American Diabetes Association on a new book, “Insulin Pumps and Continuous Glucose Monitoring: A User’s Guide to Effective Diabetes Management.” We will be giving away 10 copies of the book by random drawing – to enter, please send us a comment below and tell us what diabetes management tip you would like to share.  Read More >

Today we’re excited to congratulate Uli Rankers and his team of engineers here at Medtronic for winning a silver IDEA award for the Enlite™ Serter! The 2012 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA®) program is a celebration of design excellence in products, sustainability, interaction design, packaging, strategy, research and concepts.  Read More >

Today, I’m so pleased to share with you some exciting news about our new partnership with JDRF, in collaboration with the Helmsley Charitable Trust (HCT), to advance continuous glucose monitoring toward an artificial pancreas. The goal of the partnership is to accelerate the development of the Medtronic novel redundant sensor system, which combines two unique sensing technologies in one device.  Read More >

In my last blog, I shared about how you can add cleaning your insulin pump to your spring cleaning to-do list. So I thought I’d take this a step further by looking into my diabetes drawers which led me to my continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices. My transmitter and sensor insertion device (also called the Sen-serter) could definitely benefit from some cleaning!  Read More >

I am so excited to introduce you to our newest guest blogger, Meri Schuhmacher from Our Diabetic Life. With four wonderful boys (three with diabetes), she’s an incredibly busy D-Mom who still always manages to find the time and warmth to support and encourage others in the diabetes community. She was one of the first to try out the mySentry Remote Glucose Monitor and we’re thrilled to have her blogging for us here.  Read More >

When I first met Blair Ryan more than a year ago, she and her Insulindependence colleague Peter Nerothin were introducing Amanda and me to a fantastic burrito place in Solano Beach, CA. With the waves of the Pacific crashing behind us, I knew right away I liked this classic SoCal woman with the big smile and contagious enthusiasm for staying fit and helping people with diabetes.  Read More >

As you may have heard, we recently launched iPro2, the next-generation of our continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system used by physicians to help improve diabetes management. iPro2 includes a tiny, disposable glucose sensor and a small data recorder which automatically records glucose information every five minutes. Patients wear the small device while going about their normal daily activities before returning it to their physician’s office for evaluation.  Read More >

I have been excited to be a part of the STAR 3 clinical trial since becoming the Chief Medical Officer of Medtronic. The 12 month study phase results of Star 3, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that there was a significant reduction in A1C in those study participants using an integrated insulin pump and CGM (SAP) compared to those using multiple daily injections (MDI).  Read More >

We all love to go to them. We laugh and have fun with family and friends. The LAST thing we want to be worried about is what our blood sugar may be doing that could be a potential party-pooper for us. So what do we do?  Read More >

Happy New Year! I am thrilled to start off 2012 by sharing some really exciting news with you. We have received FDA approval for the mySentry™ Remote Glucose Monitor, the first product of its kind that allows parents and caregivers to monitor the MiniMed Paradigm® REAL-Time Revel™ System from another room.  Read More >

Each year I look forward to the time of year during which a lot of the major medical meetings for diabetes take place. It’s a time where I can interact with my colleagues and friends and we can share the latest science and technology with the goal of finding the best treatment our patients.  Read More >

When I was little, I would always forget to bring something I was supposed to have with me at all times. Whether it be my meter, a few extra needles (this was back in the “shot” days), insulin, you name it. I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the numerous times I heard my mom or dad sigh and say, “Sarah, you’d forget your head if it weren’t attached to you!”. And they were right. But I wanted to be like everyone else.  Read More >

I’ve heard that the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest day of the year for US travel. I’ve also heard it’s a myth. Either way, from Thanksgiving until New Year’s a lot of people are heading out of town to visit friends and family or to enjoy a fun get-away while they have some time off work/school. If you’re one of those people and you also have diabetes, here’s the blog roundup for you.  Read More >

Today we hear from Celeste Cooper, who offers up some helpful sensor tips – whether you’re just starting out or nearly CGM pro! For even more resources, visit the Help and Support section of our Website.  Read More >

Happy Halloween! We’re sure you are excited about dressing up for Halloween this weekend. When you do, don’t forget to take pics for The LOOP Halloween Costume Contest and email them to loopblog@medtronic.com long with a 300-word summary of your get-up by the 31st. We’re giving prizes for our favorite three and top prize wins $100 Visa Gift card. We can’t wait to see everyone’s creativity! In the meantime, have a safe and spooktacular weekend!  Read More >

Today we hear from Nicole Purcell. She’s had type 1 diabetes for nearly 30 years and, just recently, begun living on her own without parents or roommates for the first time – a scary but exciting new journey . If you have any tips for Nicole or others in her situation, please share in the comments.ad, rather unceremoniously, told me she was leaving, to go back to Texas. In eighteen hours. The very next day.  Read More >

Halloween is almost here - that time of year to get creative and don your favorite costume. But if you’re an all-year-round diabetes superhero and wear an insulin pump or CGM, how does that fit into your October 31st ensemble?  Read More >

Today we welcome back Dr. Mastrototaro, who answers one of the most frequently asked CGM questions: Why do sensor glucose readings lag behind blood glucose readings?  Read More >

Last time you heard from Dr. Mastrototaro, he gave the short description of how Medtronic’s integrated CGM works. Today, for those of you who might want to know more, he goes a bit more in-depth, explaining the roles of the sensor, transmitter and insulin pump in the system. He also talks about what goes on in the pump to calibrate that sensor.  Read More >

We’ve been talking a lot this summer about summer vacations, repelling down waterfalls and preventing moisture damage to your pump. Today, we welcome back Amy Kellerman, a product specialist on our insulin delivery marketing team, to continue on that theme to talk about what to do with your pump and CGM for different water situations.  Read More >

Recently, the Associated Press ran an article about research presented at a computer security conference regarding the security of insulin pumps. We know this has been discussed quite a bit on Twitter and blogs such as Six Until Me and Scott Hanselman’s Computer Zen this weekend so today we thought we’d take the opportunity to answer a few questions about the security of Medtronic insulin pumps.  Read More >

We’re very pleased to introduce you to another one of our executives with a long history of working hard to improve the lives of people with diabetes. Dr. John Mastrototaro, Vice President of Research and Development for the Diabetes business unit of Medtronic, has been with us for more than 17 years.  Read More >

A while back you heard about Naomi’s exciting Trip to India. Today, we hear from another world traveler from Medtronic. Elisa Marchetti is a Principal Human Resources Generalist in the Diabetes business unit of Medtronic. But here at The LOOP she’s talking about how to travel without letting diabetes hold you back – from Costa Rica to China!  Read More >

At this year’s American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions, new clinical data was released from the landmark STAR 3 Study which compared A1C reduction for people using an insulin pump integrated with CGM to those using multiple daily injections (MDI). We are excited to share this new data with you and hope it motivates you to keep up your good work managing diabetes.  Read More >

I don’t know about you, but I can easily get caught up in an episode of “How It’s Made.” Today we hear from Amy Kellerman, a product specialist on our insulin delivery marketing team, who gives us a peek into the extensive quality testing Medtronic insulin pumps and other products go through to ensure they’re tough enough to make it through the daily lives of customers like you.  Read More >

Summer is here and it’s time for many of us to hit the road – or air. Before you set out to satisfy your wanderlust, check out our answers to the top five questions we receive about air travel with an insulin pump and/or continuous glucose monitor (CGM).  Read More >

Back in November, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) introduced new airport body scanners for passengers. We know that travelling with diabetes can be a bit nerve-wracking for some (just ask Karen Graffeo or Kelly Kunik). So it’s no wonder that, six months later, airport security is still a hot topic coming into our 24-hour Helpline.  Read More >

Meet professional golfer and winner of the Golf Channel’s “Big Break” competition, Carling Coffing. From the moment Carling was first diagnosed, she decided that she would never let diabetes get in the way of pursuing her dreams. Today, Carling shares her story.  Read More >