OpenAPS in the popular press

Here’s a kind of high-level public interest piece about OpenAPS and the two principal co-inventors of the system: Alabamian with diabetes built her own artificial pancreas, gives away plan for free

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This is interesting. @Eric - the MacGyver of our group, will you be attempting to make it?

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No, I am not personally a big believer in this. :slight_smile:

The closed-loop “artificial pancreas” pumps are based on CGM readings which (for me) I find too delayed and too prone to inaccuracy. At this point I would never trust my insulin delivery to a CGM.

It’s great if it works for you, so I am not discounting it for others. But for me I think it would not be helpful.

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Ditto for us on this point. Until we can get more accurate readings, something like this wouldn’t be beneficial for Liam. Hoping one day the closed-loop systems / CGM’s integrate to the point that this will be useful, but for us, at this point, this seems like it would result in many more severe lows and extreme highs due to the fact that not only is the CGM “behind” in what’s actually going on inside the body, but also because more times than not, for us, the readings are just off by 50 or more points, which is a huge difference.

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Makes a lot of sense. If only there were a way to test/track BG real time on a graph…

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The idea of a constant BG testing device has been attempted but it is still not very practical. Issues with blood clotting create a big problem.

I had an idea to make a small piece of hardware that fit on my thumb. You know how when you snap your fingers, where the fingertip that “snaps” hits the base of the thumb? I had an idea to put a small lancing device at the base of my thumb. So whenever I needed a blood test, I could snap my fingers and draw blood. Unfortunately the problem was that the lancing device being exposed like that could always cause problems if your hand brushed against your face or anything like that! :hushed:

Anyway, that was just an aside note of my failed idea.

Yep, I would love a constant BG tester.

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I’ll say! ouch!:fearful:

Because blood clots, there would need to be a “puncture” anytime that one needed a datapoint. If one were looking for trend for 30 minutes, I’d be comfortable with testing 15 minutes apart. Portable, miniature lancet device would be great. As portable and as bare minimum as I try to make my BG testing bag, it’s still larger than a key caddy.

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Have you seen some of these?

combined-strip-and-lancing-device

strip-and-lancet-holder

easy-strip-holder-idea

The easiest way to make it compact is to just use the lancet without the device. That’s generally what I do when I leave the house. I can jab manually just as easy as carrying a bulky lancing device.

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