6 set changes in 6 days, kinked canulas. normal?

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breeze

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Hello!

You may have seen from some of my other posts that my husband went onto a medtronic insulin pump last wednesday. It started really well with consistent results all of wednesday and thursday. Then thursday night it all stared to go a bit wrong. Since the early hours of friday morning he has done 6 set changes. 4 of those have had very obvious kinks in them and 2 didn't show any obvious signs of kinking but his bloods were not coming down. Only two of these set changes have been following a no delivery alarm. The others have been high levels that wont come down.

He has lost all confidence in the pump and is getting very down about it - especially during the million of nightime blood tests and set changes we seem to be doing. There is no way we can work out if his ratios are ok when the equipment keeps failing.

My husband is very thin, really struggles for sites due to his lack of fat. He is using 6mm quicksets.

What would you advise we do? I am going to call the nurse when they open later but I thought I would try here first so that I am a bit more educated on this and maybe have some
suggestions I can make.

I look forward to your replys!
Thank you
Abby 🙂

Is this normal??
 
Hi Breeze,


Sorry to hear your husband has lost confidence.:(Lots of people find quicksets kink - I cant believe they have given him them. My son used quicksets fora couple of months when starting on the pump and we had lots of problems - once ending up being blue-lighted to hospital on holiday!

Ditch the quicksets and change to 'mio's' instead. Ring the DSN today and say its urgent and if no joy ring Medtronic - they are very good and will send a sample to try out. Mio's come with the inserter all in one in the 4 years we have used them have probably only had 2 or 3 bent ones. My son is slim too and finds the best place is on his bottom - its also hidden away which he prefers.

Dont delay - phone them today - and get a mio for him - it would be a shame to knock his confidence and he must feel ill with all those high levels.🙂Bev

p.s. mio's come in either pink or blue so he can ring the changes! Here is a link to see what they look like. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=m...AXM0ICgBA&ved=0CEIQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=667&dpr=1
 
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Quicksets are famous for kinking. Ditch them would be my advice. As he is skinny then perhaps try an angled set.
 
I absolutely agree that your husband needs to change the sets he is using.

I am fairly slim and 6mm Quicksets used to give me the runaround with alarming regularity too.

I tried all the available set types. You may find (I did) that Medtronic will not send you Mios to try unless your CCG has sanctioned the extra cost involved - they certainly wouldn't with me.

But get your husband to drop his DSN a line and get some samples from them. Preferably a few of each in the shortest lengths available.

His choices are:
Mios (90 degree teflon with self serter)
Sure-T (metal, need changing slightly more frequently at 2 days)
Silhouette (angled teflon)

I know *lots* of people rave about Mios so your husband may get on very well with those. Personally I really didnt get on with them at all. I found the self-serter a bit unreliable and ended up pushing most of the ones I tried in manually. One of the ones I did use the serter for ended up kinking.

I found angled sets by far the best for my build and have been able to use a much wider variety of sites with just one failure I think since I switched (about a year ago). Bit more about my quest for new sets here: http://www.everydayupsanddowns.co.uk/2012/09/set-changes.html

Cannot encourage your husband enough to get this sorted. Completely transformed my pump experience from verge of giving up to major advocate 🙂
 
Brilliant! Thank you all for your replys! I really dont know what we would have done without this forum over this last week. I have just left a message for the pump nurse to call me asap. I am so pleased that we should be able to sort this out. We really were at the point of giving up. I keep saying that we knew these early days would be difficult but this is getting silly now.
Thank you again! 🙂
 
Sorry, just one more question on this, I know when I speak to the nurse they are going to suggest the 9mm quickset (currently using 6mm) as this was mentioned last week. Do you think this will make a difference for him? Is it worth trying or do you think we will have the same problem?
I'm just reading up about all of the other sets you have suggested.
🙂
 
breeze said:
Sorry, just one more question on this, I know when I speak to the nurse they are going to suggest the 9mm quickset (currently using 6mm) as this was mentioned last week. Do you think this will make a difference for him? Is it worth trying or do you think we will have the same problem?
I'm just reading up about all of the other sets you have suggested.
🙂
Click to expand...

You will have the same problem. Just ditch them and use something else.
 
Just to add to what the others have said - my son is also very skinny and had exactly the same problem with the Quicksets - some of them were practically L-shaped when we removed them. He also had problems with the Mios as these are also 90 degree insertion and he hasn't a scrap of fat on his body. Silhouettes are much much better for him, as they are inserted at an angle and also have a flatter profile on the skin surface.
 
breeze said:
Sorry, just one more question on this, I know when I speak to the nurse they are going to suggest the 9mm quickset (currently using 6mm) as this was mentioned last week. Do you think this will make a difference for him? Is it worth trying or do you think we will have the same problem?
I'm just reading up about all of the other sets you have suggested.
🙂
Click to expand...

My experience is that it will be significantly worse.

I had 9mm to try on my 'saline' week and found them distinctly uncomfortable (I could 'feel' the cannula needling around inside). At least one of them kinked.

When I started on insulin I asked to change to 6mm and for about 6 months or a year I struggled on. Some times OK, other times multiple failures in a day as you describe.

9mm are not intended for lean people or children (I'm pretty sure is says that on the Medtronic website somewhere!)
 
Oh dear! Wish I had got back on and read these replys before I spoke to the nurse! I'm off to collect the box of 9mm sets now! She isnt available today but we are due to see her friday anyway. She said she will put him on the Silhouettes on friday if these dont work. Well this is going to be a fun week! :(
 
breeze said:
Oh dear! Wish I had got back on and read these replys before I spoke to the nurse! I'm off to collect the box of 9mm sets now! She isnt available today but we are due to see her friday anyway. She said she will put him on the Silhouettes on friday if these dont work. Well this is going to be a fun week! :(
Click to expand...

He will just have to try to find the very 'squishiest' spots (technical term) for sites next week. Love handles might do it... or as others have said top of the buttocks can be a good place if he can reach round to insert there.
 
breeze said:
Oh dear! Wish I had got back on and read these replys before I spoke to the nurse! I'm off to collect the box of 9mm sets now! She isnt available today but we are due to see her friday anyway. She said she will put him on the Silhouettes on friday if these dont work. Well this is going to be a fun week! :(
Click to expand...

That nurse near to get her brain in gear 🙄

Your best bet is to ring Medtronic and ask for some samples to try. Do explain that hubby is being put off pumping due to the awful problems with the sets. They wont want to lose custom so will pull their finger out to help.
 
Hi, I agree I would just phone Medtronic. We stopped the Quicksets too because of too frequent kinking. My little one is lean and she does best on the "sure T" steel cannulas 6mm, I phoned Medtronic directly for other cannulas to try and they were helpful and prompt in sending them out.

We are settled on the steel ones for now and they give me peace of mind as I had been losing faith big time in the pump with the problems we had been having with quicksets.
 
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