I’ve mentioned previously the speed at which your blood sugars start to rise should anything go wrong with your pump, and this alone means you become really rather reliant on your pump to work for you 24/7 in order to keep your diabetes in check.
However – like all electronics – pumps sometimes break down too. This is exactly what happened to me yesterday (Sunday). I’d had a momentary problem at work on the Friday when the pump screen just went blank and the unit started alarming very loudly, but I called the distributors and they told me to clean out the battery area and that should fix it. I did, and it worked.
Then, yesterday the same thing happened. I gave it another clean, inserted another new battery and forgot about it. Then it happened again half an hour later, and again another 20mins later etc. By this time I was pretty sure it was not going to fix itself.
I rang my distributor again and they agreed it sounded like a fault I couldn’t fix myself. They are based in Hamilton but my rep had a meeting up here in Auckland this morning so agreed to come and meet me first thing. However it was 2pm on a Sunday afternoon, which left me around 19 hours to get through without my pump.
Because the pump works by giving you small amounts of insulin every few minutes, it’s almost impossible to mimic it exactly. So I set about giving myself small injections to cover my basal rate every 2-3 hours. Then I realised I had some Lantus (long-acting) in the fridge so gave myself a shot of that to cover me for around half a day, and that seemed to be working up until about an hour before bed when I shot up to 14. Gave myself another shot of Humalog before bed, then set my alarm for 1am and 4am to go through the blood test and injection routine. Unfortunately the long acting did very little and I ended up having to take shots at both junctures in the night (always good to start the week tired!). High again this morning when I got up.
My distributor (Justin from www.insulinpumps.co.nz) is going to be here pretty soon and I’m looking forward to being reunited with my little insulin machine – feel pretty naked without it really!
My point is: if you are considering getting a pump, there is a lot to take into account (what functions does it have, what does it cost, will it be upgraded with new technology when that’s released, how much are the consumables?) – but something that hadn’t occurred to me previously was this one: “what sort of support does the company offer if it breaks on a Sunday?”. Worth factoring in.
Posted in Insulin Pumps
Tagged as insulin pump
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Roy wrote
I should like to know Nic about the small amounts of insulin delivered every few minutes.
How is it measured. It would seem to me to have to be a lot less than say a half a pen unit?
How long (approximately) is the needle part of the cunnula it this the correct part that inserts under the skin?
Do you have to replace the feed line when you change a vial or refill one and does it still have insulin in it?
If you use a long feed line, say from the ankle to the tumany site
Roy wrote
Sorry Nic. Sent the blasted thing before finishing it. So I will start again.
If you use a long feed line, say from the ankle to the abdomen site, is it of a smaller diameter than say a one from the pocket, even with a loop. It would seem to me that say a meter of line would contain a lot of insulin.
The first pump I ever saw was in the mid nineties. A chap from Sweden was on a world cycling tour. NZ was his last stop and he had been on the road for two years.
He was very surprised that pumps were not free here as they are there. Why I bring this up is, his left side lower abdomen from his navel button down was deep purple from the cycling where the cunnula went in. I said that I thought he should have it looked at. We were not in Dunedin at the time, but he didn’t seem interested.
I spoke with a lass at the diabetes congress who had cycled across the USA with a team of guys about this and she said did not show any such bruising, but said she could see that it could happen. I will never forget that chap.
Nic wrote
Hi Roy – sorry for the delay in getting back to you, will try to answer your questions here.
1. Yes, the amounts are less than a pen unit. They are miniscule. I believe you can get them down to 0.005 every three minutes – but would need a pump rep to confirm this.
2. You are right, the cannula is what goes under the skin. I believe the shortest is 6mm – I am a little better covered, shall we say, so use 8 or 9mm.
3. You don’t necessarily need to change the tubing when you fill up the cartridge, but I know some people who do this as part of their routine. Most people I know are trying to use their consumables for the max amount of recommended time to keep costs down.
4. The tubing is the same thickness no matter what the length. The tubing contains primed insulin at any point, but that doesn’t mean that you are being injected with the full tube’s worth when you have a bolus – you specify how many units and it delivers them.
Does that answer your questions? My disclaimer is that this is just from a consumer, not a pump expert!
Roy wrote
Thanks Nic. Yes that covers it. From the sharp end there is little difference in needle lengths and it would not be too hard to see that having one of these permanently inserted angled or not, would cause site irritation.
From the expert perspective, I believe we are that a week after diagnoses and as Denis Waitley once quipped, “Never become so much of an expert that you stop gaining expertise. View life as a continuous learning experience.”
I follow the path that I am king of everything, but master of nothing.
Nic wrote
Very good, Roy