Welcome to your Loop journey!
Our aim is to help you learn what Loop is and how it can help you better manage your diabetes. This first section will cover the basics:
What is Loop?
Loop is an app that you build yourself, and install on your iPhone. Loop connects to your continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and your pump. Loop’s algorithm forecasts your future glucose trend and makes dosing decisions (more or less insulin) every 5 minutes.
The forecasted trend helps you to anticipate future lows (time to eat a small fruit?) or spikes (time for a walk?), thus helping you to better manage your diabetes.
Loop does not contain Artificial Intelligence and it does not “learn you”.
History and background
Here are a few interesting articles about the history of Loop:
- The History of Loop and Loopkit by Nate Racklyeft (2016)
- Insulin Pumps, Decapped Chips and Software Defined Radios by Pete Schwamb (2019)
There are several different flavors of DIY artificial pancreas systems (APS) and one of the founders of OpenAPS recently published this book:
- The APS Book by Dana Lewis (2019)
- Which DIY Algorithm to Choose? provides a great synopsis of the different DIY options.
DISCLAIMER
There is a large community of volunteers available to help when you need it, however, you are completely responsible for your own technology and settings decisions.
- Do not have someone else build or install Loop for you
- Do not pay someone to build Loop for you
You need to have all the bits and pieces available to rebuild Loop, and for safety and efficiency, you need to understand how to do that build with limited hand holding.
Loop is experimental. Loop is not approved for therapy by any official government agency. In some countries, you can get yourself into serious legal trouble for helping someone Loop.
You take full responsibility for building and running this system and you do so at your own risk!
Why is Loop amazing?
You spend less time thinking about diabetes as Loop constantly adjusts your insulin delivery.
- You sleep better at night thanks to having fewer alarms
- You have fewer low blood glucose events and the severity of the ones you have are reduced
- You have fewer hyperglycemic events and the severity of the ones you have are reduced
- Your Time in Range and A1c improve – or if they are already pretty good, it takes less time to achieve that control
For most, Looping means a significant improvement in quality of life, having to think less about diabetes and being able to eat food they were previously avoiding.
There are people who have tried to Loop and have decided that it was not for them. If a commercial hybrid closed loop system is best for you, there are lots to choose from, including: MiniMed™ 780G (SmartGuard™); Tandem’s T slim x2 Control IQ; Insulet’s Omnipod5; and CamAPS FX.
How does it work?
Just like you enter your parameters into your pump, you will enter your parameters into Loop. As life happens, you tell Loop how much carbs you are eating or how intensive your workout is.
Based on this information, every 5 minutes, Loop will calculate a new forecasted glucose trend for the next 6 hours. Each time, Loop will decide if you need more or less insulin and adjust insulin delivery accordingly.
Can I really build my own app and Loop?
In order to build your own app and Loop, you need to:
- Be able to read and follow instructions
- Make a commitment to carefully test and adjust your settings periodically
- Make a commitment to return to the support forums on a regular basis to see if there are any important safety updates
- Know how to troubleshoot and where to find the most current troubleshooting information
Your Settings are Critical for Successful Use of Loop
If you are not comfortable figuring out your own basal rates, carb ratios, insulin sensitivity, and refining those on a somewhat regular basis, then Loop is not for you – yet. But once again, if you’re willing to do the work, there are lots of mentors available to help you.
You can count on your fingers the number of doctors in the US who are capable of properly adjusting settings for Loop. You can probably count on your fingers and toes the number worldwide who can successfully help you with Loop settings. Be sure to check out our list of DIY Friendly Healthcare Providers. If you are not familiar with books such as “Using Insulin,” “Pumping Insulin,” “Think Like a Pancreas,” “Sugar Surfing,” or other similar methods of figuring out and adjusting your own settings, you will need to do some reading, learning, and testing before you can be successful with Loop. LoopTips has Settings Overview and Adjustment sections well worth your time. Note that LoopTips was written several years ago and many features of Loop have been upgraded since then.
The most common reasons that people will fail in their Loop attempts are:
- Not understanding the algorithm-based control system (more explanations later)
- Getting confused by settings and not understanding their interactions
- Not realizing that insulin has a very long tail (duration of action); Loop uses this in its forecasts
- Failure to stay informed. (Our Featured Posts and online Loop and Learn newsletter are always updated.)
- Having someone else build Loop without understanding it themselves
How do I get started?
Most important at this stage is for you to invest your time to learn about Loop and how it works by reading this Starting Loop section. For your first time through this section, just try to grasp the concepts. Don’t worry about clicking on every link (and we provide lots of links).
Please follow along on Facebook , read LoopDocs watch our YouTube Channel, and subscribe to our Newsletter.
When you’re ready, take a look at our Quick Start Guide which walks you through the set up of Loop, LoopFollow, LoopCaregiver and Nightscout, as well as testing remote commands, over a 7-day period.