Cartridge low alarm - help please

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I have NEVER noticed them do that in Hospital After 47yrs. When you get a bottle of milk out of the fridge & pour it in a cup where is the bubbles ?
 
Oh dear I seem to have opened a can of worms here, sorry folks!

Thank you for the kind words Sue 🙂

Hobie I still don't understand why you seem quite so upset about it. Some people like their insulin at room temperature and that works for them. You don't and it works for you. Does it really matter? Sometimes there is more than one way of doing something.
 
I was just wondering if you could not change the low insulin alert on your pump Patti to something more applicable to you, 20 units would last us into another day and half, we have Medtronic though.
Re: insulin at room temp, I would never administer cold out of fridge and have been told not to by DSN, if I forget to get new vial out I pop down bra for a quick warm lol 🙂 Relax!! btw they do leave insulin out the fridge in hospital (or they have done on the wards I've previously worked on).
 
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We always use room temperature insulin and make up a fresh vial each time we need it🙂We were told its better to use at room temperature - although I cant remember the reason for that now. To be fair to Hobie this is probably advice that was given a while ago when insulin maybe had a different shelf-life and was all kept in the fridge🙂Bev
 
HOBIE said:
I have NEVER noticed them do that in Hospital After 47yrs. When you get a bottle of milk out of the fridge & pour it in a cup where is the bubbles ?
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Pour a glass of water from a tap and out it on a sunny window sill and you will see small bubbles of oxygen appear around the glass after a few hours as the water warms slightly. Oxygen is less soluble in warm or hot water. It's where the bubbles come from when you boil a pan of water.

That's the reason why keeping 'in use' insulin out of the fridge is advised (less chance of bubbles appearing in the reservoir as the insulin is warmed by body heat) - though some people choose not to and that's fine if it gives them no problems/they prefer it.

For what it's worth Sally I'd have done exactly the same and have on more than one occasion 🙂
 
Sally71 said:
Oh dear I seem to have opened a can of worms here, sorry folks!

Thank you for the kind words Sue 🙂

Hobie I still don't understand why you seem quite so upset about it. Some people like their insulin at room temperature and that works for them. You don't and it works for you. Does it really matter? Sometimes there is more than one way of doing something.
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Don't take it personally Sally 🙂

This topic has come up before, and most of us do exactly what you do (ie. keep an in-use vial at room temp to avoid bubbles forming in the reservoir). I have also observed (as have others) that I can start on day 1 with a bubble-free reservoir, and if left for 3 days, a few little bubbles will have appeared - these are dissolved air evaporating out because the insulin is warmer against his body. Perfectly scientific explanation, and there are plenty of strategies to deal with it. Hobie always seems to get cross when this topic comes up because apparently he personally doesn't get this effect! 😉. No offence meant Hobie 🙂
 
Thank you all for your replies - I didn't think my little comment would kick off such a debate, as you can tell I'm not used to posting on forums! Well at least I know now that I'm not being a complete idiot if I ever again forget to get a vial out and have to warm it up by hand 🙂
 
I was just wondering if you could not change the low insulin alert on your pump Patti to something more applicable to you, 20 units would last us into another day and half, we have Medtronic though.
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No, that didn't come up as an option whilst I was searching the manuals. Tomorrow I should have time to do more ferreting about looking for info as OH will be busy watching the 6 nations rubgy!

I was also told not to use insulin straight out of the fridge and that it would cause more bubbles when filling the cartridg. DSN suggested sticking it in my bra to warm it up a bit if I had forgotten to get a vial out in time. It actually fits quite nicely under my boob. I used to be able to pass the pencil test - no longer, now I can fit a whole vial there!
 
On Sunday morning my Accuchek alarmed at the 20 unit level....we were busy at the time, skipped breakfast and I forgot completely, then went for a late pub roast lunch....went to bolus as food arrived and I had 2 units left! 😱 oh well, ate it, drove home, changed cartridge and bolused, test 2 hours later ....5.4! 🙂 First time I've been out and about with an empty cartridge!
 
On Sunday morning my Accuchek alarmed at the 20 unit level....we were busy at the time, skipped breakfast and I forgot completely, then went for a late pub roast lunch....went to bolus as food arrived and I had 2 units left! oh well, ate it, drove home, changed cartridge and bolused, test 2 hours later ....5.4! First time I've been out and about with an empty cartridge!
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Arghhhh everyone's nightmare Phil. I've not done it on the pump but a couple of times when I was on MDI I have found myself in a restaurant with food in front of me and either an empty cartridge in the pen or no needles. On those occasions I've been mega surprised at how low I have been when I should have been high. On one occasion I was questioning whether I'd had a miraculous cure!
 
Sometimes it makes no sense, does it. You try your hardest to keep your numbers as stable as possible, can't always succeed, and then when you expect a bad one you don't get it!

My daughter always removes her pump for a few minutes while getting dressed in th morning. One day she forgot to put it back on again, went to school and nobody noticed intil gone 11am. By the time I had found the pump and raced round to school to put it back on her it had been disconnected for nearly 4 hours 😱 Trying not to make a big drama out of it I said "never mind, it's lunchtime in a few minutes, if your test comes out high at least we know why, pump will correct it when you do the lunch bolus.". Lunch blood test was... 6.5!!

The very next day we all made sure she remembered to put the pump back on in the morning, everything at school was normal, lunch time test that day came out at 13!! Activity levels tend to be much more stable at school than out of school, so unless she had a sneaky snack that day that I don't know about, I can't work that out at all!
 
I put my pump basal down to 40% when I am at the gym. Then I put it back up an hour after I finish. This means that I'm back on 100% by about 9pm. One day I forgot, and left it on 40% all night. When I noticed next morning, I thought I would be really high. My BS was...9.7. Higher than I would like, but not consistent with 60% less insulin for nearly 12 hours!
 
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