My experience with DIY loop
This blog was originally published on as an email newsletter sent on June 21, 2024
“Always travel with backups to technology” is something I say often, and last week is a prime example of why. While at the CW diabetes Friends for Life conference in Orlando (which I highly recommend!), my Omnipod 5 Controller/PDM gave an error message that could not be cleared.
I called Omnipod customer service and they said there was nothing that could be done (it was an old Controller that I was meant to update a few months ago– whoops!🫢). But not to worry, I had pens!
All seemed fine, I would get my new Controller in 2-3 days and use pens in the meantime. Until I went to get out my pen and realized the dial was broken! As in, I couldn’t give any insulin!
Fortunately, I was at a diabetes conference. Meaning, there were HUNDREDS of people there with insulin, pens, and pumps. And lucky for me, I had met a friend who was using (and loving) DIY loop and willing to help me get set up on it!
If you’re not familiar with DIY loop, it’s basically a community-developed app with a closed-loop algorithm that connects a pump to a CGM (aka could act as a replacement to my PDM until the new one arrived). (You can read more techy details about it here.) (Note, DIY loop doesn’t work with Omnipod 5 pods, but I had a spare Omnipod DASH pod with me, so I could use it to connect my Dexcom G6!)
It takes about 2 hours of initial set-up (thank you Andrew) and Voila!
I can now bolus using my phone (and watch!!) How cool!?!
My friends who use DIY loop swear by it. But as a lover of Omnipod 5, I was curious to compare the two. Below are some of my thoughts after 1 week:
1.It’s SO nice using your phone/watch.
I can’t express how incredible it is to be able to bolus from your watch and phone. I know Omnipod 5 is ramping up this feature now (I believe a few lucky people are already on it!). It’s so freeing not needing to carry around an extra device.
2. But, you have to keep your phone near you.
The great thing about Omnipod 5 is that the transmitter from the Dexcom talks DIRECTLY to the pod, meaning you don’t need a device near you for the pod to adjust insulin. You only need the Controller/PDM when you are giving a bolus or making a change to insulin delivery.
However, with DIY loop, the phone needs to be near you and turned on in order for the loop to work. The plus is that the gadgets don’t need to be in a “line of sight” on your body.
3. It takes into account insulin on board AND carbs on board.
With DIY loop, you can tell it what type of carbs you’re eating and the absorption time. This is helpful so the app can better catch a delayed spike (*think pizza) and predict if your carbs eaten will be enough to treat a low. I've found it’s not always accurate, but hopefully improves with use.
4. You can set a lower target glucose.
Because the app isn’t FDA approved, you can set a super low target glucose compared to 110mg/dl on the Omnipod 5. I have mine set to 100mg/dl on DIY loop.
There are a lot more cool features, but I'll expand on those in a longer blog post after a few more weeks. (Here is a pic of the dashboard, showing the current and predicted glucose, active insulin, delivery, and active carbs. Pretty cool!)
HOWEVER, despite all the things I’m loving about it…
After 1 week:
My time-in-range went down from my usual 90%+.
I have a much higher standard deviation (41 vs my usual <30).
And I find myself spending more time thinking about what to input into the pump to get the result I want.
This will likely improve with time and me learning more about the system. But I know that I prefer my diabetes management to be simple, and as “advanced” as DIY loop is, it takes away some of the simplicity that I had with Omnipod 5 (while still having great TIR and low SD).
I’ll use up the rest of my Dash pods using loop, but plan on going back to Omnipod 5 when I’m done!
This was originally written after my first week using DIY loop. If you want to see my thoughts after 1 month on the system, check out my video reviews on the Honey Health App!
