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Anyone said no to a pump?

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A

Adrasteia

Active Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Hi All,

We have a meeting with the DNS next week and we're going to be talking about moving on to the pump.

I've heard the usual pros and cons, and heard from plenty of parents who love the pump, but has anyone decided against it for their wee one, or tried it out and gone back to injections? If so, why?

I'm hoping to get a balanced view of both sides from people who've actually lived with it before I commit to a get an expensive and fragile looking machine on a pretty boisterous 4 year old!

Thanks!
 
It's definitely not fragile, don't worry about that. I believe in patient choice, but to make an informed choice you need to try all options.

By far the majority of people get on better with a pump, the cons are having something attached and keeping an eye out for any pump problems ... which are generally easy enough to spot if you stick to guidelines.

It can take a wee while to get settled with it, but with practise and experience the cons are usually a small price to pay for better quality of life and diabetes control x
 
Before I got mine, as a school governor I was in school and the year 1 class teacher introduced me to a 6 year old who delighted in showing me his pump. He thought it was so cool, and so did all his friends - they are all so keen on technology these days - let alone the fact that a pump will help him stay healthy
 
We were offered a pump immediately after diagnosis, because a trial was going on comparing pumps with MDI in newly diagnosed children. My daughter was the first one to join the trial at our hospital so they were fairly desperate to get us on one! But we were still in shock and barely knew what insulin pumps were. My mum has been T1 for 48 years now and has always done pretty well on MDI so I didn't particularly want a strange contraption that I knew nothing about.

My hubby was told all about how they are better for long term health and he really wanted daughter to get one, daughter and I weren't so keen (she wanted to have jabs like grandma). Hubby gave me the job of trying to convince daughter that the pump was a good thing, this resulted in an hour of tears and sulking and in the end I had to walk away as I was nearly in tears too. Thst afternoon daughter wanted to go to the park, hubby said he would take her if she agreed to go on the pump and she said "ok then!"

So reluctantly I agreed to let her go on the pump, with the proviso that we could give it back if we didn't like it. It took me precisely half a day to realise that in a lot of ways it was going to make life a lot easier!
 
We were offered a pump the day after dx-we were all still in shock at the time .I think I had a problem with it being me having to sign the consent!- also H was very sporty [still is] and he didn't like the connect/disconnect bit.I also had a friend who knew a dietician at another hospital whose view was not for a newly dx teenager [she wouldn't for her own child]I remember having a meltdown in sports direct about the whole thing!I can laugh about it now!So I said to H I cant sign if you choose a pump when your older fine. Hes been on MDI since 2011 and is fine/well managed
 
heasandford said:
Before I got mine, as a school governor I was in school and the year 1 class teacher introduced me to a 6 year old who delighted in showing me his pump. He thought it was so cool, and so did all his friends - they are all so keen on technology these days - let alone the fact that a pump will help him stay healthy
Click to expand...

Kids do tech better than us "oldies" 😉. I am in my 49th year of being T1 & have had a pump for a few years now & would NOT let anybody take it off me :D
 
Nor me.

I understand your reluctance delbt - but would say that if good control for more of your time is the key to preventing complications - well that's exactly what a pump gives me - better BG for more hours out of every day.

Your pancreas naturally drips your basal insulin in 24/7 - and so does a pump - not shovelling it in once or twice a day.

If you hate them - you can give em back, cos they don't belong to you - and go back to MDI.
 
Well we've got pretty decent management of his mealtime doses but the basal is proving much trickier - he's only on 1/2 a unit of levemir during the day but is still nudging hypos before lunch, and we can't drop that half unit because he's always high earlier in the morning. Nighttime is just as bad - high early evening, but dropping quite a lot by the early hours.

We've spoken to the consultant and she's happy that we're doing the best we can on MDI but if we want to improve his HbA1C (currently 57mmol, or 7.4% in old money, which isn't too bad) then a pump is the way.

We're on the waiting list (12-18 months!) and it will likely be the Medtronic 640G. A very kind volunteer let me have a good look at her medtronic when we went to the family day and that, and speaking to her, really helped. They're much smaller, and the tubing much slimmer than I thought!

Now I've made the decision, it can't come quickly enough!
 
My HbA1C is 56.3 with my Medtronic Veo. A 640 is on my shopping list. Good luck
 
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