After a month on the Sequel Twiist pump, I found that I truly loved the Tidepool algorithm, but I was over it. The Freestyle Libre accuracy issues I was experiencing, the painful Cleo infusion sets, and having tubes again after years with Omnipod just weren’t working for me.
I’d heard about DIY Loop, but it always sounded so intimidating. I’m not a techy person by any means, so building an app sounded impossible, and my endocrinologists in the past had never even mentioned it as an option. It felt a little “taboo.”
Please note, this post is not medical advice. Make sure to consult with your healthcare team before making any changes to your diabetes management routine. Open source apps are experimental and not FDA-approved. You take full responsibility for building and using these apps.
When I Decided to Make the Switch to DIY Loop
While I was still trialing the Twiist, I went on a work trip to Cincinnati. I was with a few other diabetes educators, and one of them was using DIY Loop. He told me that most of his team used it, showed me the app, let me play around with it, and assured me that it was 100% doable. To my surprise, the app looked almost identical to the Twiist app but with a few additional features.
That night, I went down a rabbit hole in my hotel room. It seemed like the best of both worlds: using my beloved Omnipods and Dexcom while also having the Tidepool algorithm. I was sold!
Steps to Prepare
When I got home, I had my provider order a month’s supply of Omnipod DASH Pods, which I got right away. I spent the next few days reading through the Loop documentation, watching YouTube videos, and scrolling through a DIY Loop Facebook community. I felt confident that I was ready to take the leap.
Building DIY Loop
Once I had everything in place, I signed up for a GitHub account and an Apple Developer account. The Apple Developer account costs $99 per year and took a few days to get approved. Once my account was approved, I was ready. That Monday evening after my kids were in bed, I sat down to build the app.
I have absolutely no tech background, but everything I’d heard and read said that as long as you follow the directions, anyone can do it. I had two windows open on my computer: one for LoopDocs and one for GitHub. To my surprise, it only took about an hour to build the app and another hour and a half to wait for it to finish building and show up in the TestFlight app.
Since I was already familiar with the Tidepool algorithm and my settings from using Twiist, the setup was incredibly quick and easy.
Final Thoughts
I’m only a few weeks in, but I can already tell this is going to be a total game-changer for me. My only regret? Not doing it sooner!
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