I am one of those hardcore Cozmo nuts. Have you ever met one of us? We’re easy to spot. We usually have an old Smiths Medical Deltec Cozmo insulin pump that is well past its warranty period, is a bunch of different colors (from “Frankensteining” parts off other broken Cozmos), and might even have some duct tape or superglue holding it together. The Cozmo was taken off the market back in 2009, and many of us have been unwilling to let go.
But I have been open to trying new pumps and had an opportunity to try the Asante Snap recently. I wore the Snap pump for about 30 days, which put me through the exercise of changing infusion sets, loading cartridges, and installing new pump bodies for a month.
Each time I got a kick out of how it all worked.
My favorite part was twisting the tubing connector onto the pump body, which triggers the auto priming. As soon as I twisted that piece on, insulin was pushed from the pre-filled cartridge all the way out to the end of the tubing. It was fascinating! I literally chuckled out loud every single time. I even made my family watch.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXrq8-0WC3U]
I also liked how easily the pump traveled. Having a pump body, a pre-filled cartridge of insulin, and the Conset infusion set packed really well. Small, uncrushable (within reason), and pretty much self-contained. The only thing I had trouble with is handling sharps from the Conset (but I think one of those BD needle clippers would work well).
In terms of pump features, nothing in the world stands up to Cozmo. That being said, I didn’t find myself missing anything while using the Snap pump. It handled all of my basal rates just fine, all of my insulin to carb ratios and correction factors worked well, and my use of temporary basal rates for exercise went without any trouble at all.
I can’t say that my diabetes management is fine-tuned enough to tell if the Snap pump made any appreciable difference in my numbers. When switching out one pump for another, I wouldn’t expect to see anything drastic.
There were no surprises through the duration of my trial.
When the trial was done, and I was preparing everything with my Cozmo, the magic of the Snap pump hit me. I was sitting there waiting for the push-rod in my Cozmo to rewind and pull the cartridge full of insulin inside. Waiting, waiting, waiting. It felt like forever. It all seemed so ridiculous after using the Snap for the past month.
When I think about the steps involved with my Cozmo, it doesn’t feel like a lot. It doesn’t seem like it takes much time out of my life. Not that I had ever noticed, anyway. But in comparison, the Cozmo (and I’d argue most other pumps) experience is clumsy, cluttered, slow and leaves a bunch of wrappers and garbage. The Snap experience is easy, fast and contained.
I’m sold on it. Now I just need my insurance plan to cooperate.
My insurance copnamy paid for it 100%. My endocrinologist said that I needed it for my pregnancy to keep my blood sugars down, since I had my daughter they are still paying for my supplies thank goodness. My A1c tests after having the pump when I was pregnant went down to normal non-diabetic levels, but since I had her they are back to 5.9 and just three months ago they were 6.3. I have a Deltec Cozmo from Smith’s Medical and they did wonders helping me get mine. A friend of mine has a mini med and now he wants… Read more »
I have cozmo too. the year i got it they discontinued the thing. I love my pump, but now i’m starting to feel like i should of gotten the animas or something else. I dont have health insurance right now so the cozmo is getting rather expensive. they only use their own cartridges which even on a whole sale website cost 100 dollars. sigh! what kind of insulin pump should i change to once i get married and gain some kind of benefits from my fiance’s job?
Yay for another Cozmo user! 🙂 All pumps only use their own cartridges, so there’s no way around that. As far as which one to switch to, I’m afraid that’s a choice that only you can make. Each company can send someone out to visit with you and teach you about their pump, and each company can also take a close and detailed look at your benefits without any cost or obligation – it’s definitely a service worth taking them up on. And take a look at some of the great community sites like TuDiabetes.org or DiabetesDaily.com – there are… Read more »
I’m giving it a try next week, even getting training. I think its been twenty years since I waited for the training, before unwrapping. Great to see you at CWD, hope all is well.
SR
Sweet feature. It’s true that you don’t know how tedious something can be until something else comes along to show you that.(now, if I only had my own personal diabetes robot who would do all these tasks for me…) Wishing you luck with the insurance co-surely they should approve this, they haven’t payed for a new pump in forever,right?
Thanks for the review, Scott – I always love to hear about the new things that are out or coming out. The only question I had has already been asked and answered here by people who aren’t as behind on blogs as I am – LOL – which was about the types of insulin the cartridges come pre-filled with.