Here I sit with frustration. I have a problem. You may also have this problem. Heck, many of us may have it. If you wear an insulin pump it's likely somewhat of an issue for you. My wife has been gone all week out of town on a business trip. The problem....I hear my pump alarms less and less at night now-a-days. My wife is a lite sleeper so it wakes her easily, and in turn she wakes me if I don't get to it by the second round of "personal fire alarm". It doesn't matter whether the pump is on vibe or high, I don't hear/feel all of my alarms while sleeping. I'm a heavy sleeper and it just doesn't wake me up.

Now I've tried a few things to see if we could increase the volume, but to no avail. We tried a baby monitor, but I could hear the alarm from the pump better on it's own than I could hear it through the amplified speaker. Strike 1. I've tried alternating between vibe and high alarm settings and.......strike 2. Whatever trial number three would be, I'm sure it would probably be a strike also.

What I need is for the pump companies "Animas", "Deltec", "Disetronic", "Minimed", or "Sooil" to come up with an external speaker that will recieve data from the pump and properly relay (from my nightstand to my ear directly) a signal I don't have muffled under a down comforter of sheet.

That shouldn't be too hard, right? All I need is a simple 2" speaker at my bedside that's going to wake me more easily than what I currently don't hear or feel as quickly.

Now there are a few things to note here. One, sometimes I do wake-up right away. Two, unless I'm sweating I tend to not wake-up automatically when I have a low BG. Three, I'm a good bit cranky sometimes when I awake out of bear hibernation to check on whatever personal fire alarm is sounding off. Fourth, I've tried to pay more attention to the alarms and force acute alertness...but within a week or so I'm back to unfortunately less then adequate fire alarm response. Fifth, I can wake at 3 AM to the sound of an owl softly hooting in the woods directly behind the house, but don't hear or feel my pump alarms....I have indeed come to the point of non-responsiveness due to my becoming unreacitive to the same alarm types.

Personally, I think this would be a simple way to enhance and make the closed system a bit more secure, esp. for the hibernating bear sleepers.