From: bkubel_pumpmate [#1]
22 Mar 2:39
To: ALL
Hello all! I am new to this discussion board and am the blind wife of a blind type1 diabetic who has had the disease for 40 years. My husband, James Kubel, is an engineer and pump user and has a Medtronic pump. He had an extremely hard time convincing his doctors he could use the pump as a blind person and decided he and his colleague were going to tackle the problem of inaccessible pump therapy themselves. The PumpMate is a remote control that works with Medtronic pumps to make them fully accessible for the blind and visually impaired using speech and a larger screen. . We are working hard to get the pump manufactures to understand that insulin pump therapy should be for all diabetics, not just those with perfect sight . Please visit our website http://www.pump-mate.com and take a look for yourself. You can send email to brandie@pump-mate.com with any questions or if you want to know more about me and my husband. We need all the support we can get to give a voice to blind and visually impaired diabetics everywhere and we need your help!! Please take a minute and let us know what you think. Please help us to spread the word and make the big pump companies listen. Thank you so much!Reply
From: Diabetes_Doc [#3]
22 Mar 10:38
To: bkubel_pumpmate [#1] 22 Mar 16:49
The reader should note that this proposed product is not available at this time, but is only a concept. From their website:
The PumpMate is a concept demonstrator only. We hope to partner with an insulin pump manufacturer to bring this concept to reality.
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From: bkubel_pumpmate [#5]
22 Mar 17:00
To: ALL
Hello again, I apologize for not stating right away that the Pumpmate was a concept and not a available product. I simply want to know who out there is blind or visually impaired and who would like to use a pump but cannot due to no accessibility. It seems so strange to me that diabetes is the leading cause of blindness today and pumps still arn't accessible. Does anyone else feel that way too? my husband has been a pump user for 10 years and although he memorizes the button combinations he couldn't change his basil rate or set profiles and really use his pump to it's full advantage. I hope I didn't step out of line with my post I only want discussion and imput from users and the medical community. Thank you very much for clarifying my intentions and for keeping my post up. I'll be more specific from now on. Best of health to all!
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