I can’t believe it took me almost 3 months of using this pump before I realized that I have the ability to silence high alerts. When I first got this pump, I explored the many option screens, but at the time I wasn’t thinking about “how do I make this pump quiet?” The pump was brand new to me and I was more concerned about HEARING its alerts than silencing them… But now with 3 months of experience, I’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes I do want to silence the high alerts, and here’s why!

When do I silence the high alerts?

When I’ve already treated

Sometimes I’ve already treated with enough insulin and I don’t want to be notified in the next 1-2 hours because I need to wait for the insulin I already administered to work. Patience. Insulin doesn’t work right away. It takes time to bring down blood glucose levels. If I already treated, I just need to wait. I don’t need to hear more alarms.

When I think it may go high after a meal and I don’t want to be interrupted

I may be in a business meeting or on a phone call or on a date. If I know that the high is going to happen and I’ve already treated with an insulin bolus, then I don’t want the alarm to go off.

How to silence the high alerts

The setting is under “Audio Options.” Select the first option under that, “Alert Silence Options.” There you will be able to snooze high and/or low sensor alerts for the time period that you enter. Check out Medtronic’s instructions for silencing alerts while in Auto Mode.

I have read that this doesn’t silence all alerts, for example the one for exiting out of Auto mode.

Also review your “High Settings”

There is an additional snooze setting that can be configured under the SmartGuard menu. The high snooze setting there can be configured for a set amount of time before the high alarm will repeat. I have this set to 1 hour. See Medtronic’s guide on how to get up the high snooze setting.

So if you set it to 1 hour snooze setting, it will not alert you of the high again until after 1 hour has passed.

Silence the alarms so that I can nap

Dealing with diabetes can be super frustrating and so many times when I’m high I just want to give a bolus and then go to sleep. I don’t want it waking me up!! The silencing options are perfect for this. I usually only silence for 1-2 hours, because if I’m still high after 2 hours, I likely need more insulin and I do want to know about that. But if I got the bolus amount correct (and everything is working correctly and I don’t have a bent cannula), then the insulin will work to lower my blood glucose while I sleep. yay!