Daylight time changes impact on pump users

Amity Island

Amity Island

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Researchers say daylight saving time is dangerous to people using insulin pumps.

A team of MSU researchers has written an article on the risk of mistakes in insulin dosage due to time change published in a journal of the American Diabetes Association.

“My hope is to get rid of daylight saving time altogether.”

www.wgvunews.org

Researchers say daylight saving time is dangerous to people using insulin pumps

Michigan State University researchers are calling for an end to daylight saving time to protect people with diabetes
www.wgvunews.org www.wgvunews.org
 
nonethewiser said:
Pump user of many years never had any issues with time change.
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Yes, feels like a stretch. Sure, you could get it wrong (the example given was switching from AM to PM), but just shifting an hour either way shouldn't be difficult. Depends on the interface, I guess, and manufacturers ought to put some effort into evaluating such things given that daylight saving times aren't likely to disappear (and we'll presumably always have timezone variations).

I wonder if the AM/PM problem is made worse because (in the US) 24 hour clocks are less commonly used? (I don't use a pump but I could imagine some pumps deliberately defaulting to 24 hour outside the US to reduce such confusions, and maybe that's not acceptable to US users?)
 
Satan’s little helper said:
Thanks for the peace of mind. I don't pump yet. But some who do online seem to make it a "dark art?" I don't buy it.
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Well when you get your pump it is all very precise and can deliver minuscule doses which can make all the difference, so you learn how to use it and are taught that it has to be set up exactly right for you to get optimal performance. Which in some ways is true; that’s the advantage it has over injections. But human bodies don’t work that precisely or consistently, so in reality you’ve got more wiggle room than you imagine. And you’ll still get those days when it all goes wrong and you have no idea why!
 
Another spurious reason to try to get rid of Clock Changes. They come up every year, but this is the first time I’ve seen a pump one :D I think there is a possible tiny effect, but that effect is also potentially felt by those on MDI too.
 
Sally71 said:
Well when you get your pump it is all very precise and can deliver minuscule doses which can make all the difference, so you learn how to use it and are taught that it has to be set up exactly right for you to get optimal performance. Which in some ways is true; that’s the advantage it has over injections. But human bodies don’t work that precisely or consistently, so in reality you’ve got more wiggle room than you imagine. And you’ll still get those days when it all goes wrong and you have no idea why!
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I've been T1 since a kid for nearly 5 decades. I could do with this bit of a break our Lord and saviour Dr Karr promised on the shorter less sledge hammer to crack my nut dosage?
 
Inka said:
Another spurious reason to try to get rid of Clock Changes. They come up every year, but this is the first time I’ve seen a pump one :D I think there is a possible tiny effect, but that effect is also potentially felt by those on MDI too.
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Does nobody remember that there was a trial in the 1970s to stay on summertime all year round, which was declared a disaster after 2 or 3 years and hence the clock changes were brought back in? So my mum tells me, I would have been too small to know!
 
Sally71 said:
Does nobody remember that there was a trial in the 1970s to stay on summertime all year round, which was declared a disaster after 2 or 3 years and hence the clock changes were brought back in? So my mum tells me, I would have been too small to know!
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Yes, that’s right! I remember my Dad telling me. It’s not a good idea IMO.
 
Apparently we had Double Summertime during the war. See link:

www.rmg.co.uk

British Summer Time (BST) and Daylight Saving - understanding UK time changes

Why does UK time change, and when was British Summer Time first introduced? Explore the history of BST and daylight saving
www.rmg.co.uk www.rmg.co.uk

“During the Second World War (1939-1945), British Double Summer Time - two hours in advance of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) - was temporarily introduced for the period when ordinary daylight saving would be in force. During the winter, clocks were kept one hour in advance of GMT to increase productivity.”
 
Sally71 said:
Does nobody remember that there was a trial in the 1970s to stay on summertime all year round, which was declared a disaster after 2 or 3 years and hence the clock changes were brought back in? So my mum tells me, I would have been too small to know!
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1968-1971, apparently. (Rather too long ago for me, too.)

From https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP93-111/RP93-111.pdf

The Government gave an undertaking that a comprehensive review would be carried out before any decision was taken at the end of the BST experiment. The White Paper which followed in 1970 (Cmnd 4512, Review of British Standard Time) pointed out that it was impossible to quantify advantages and disadvantages and that a final decision would need to rest largely on a qualitative decision.​
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The issue was debated in the Commons on 2 December 1970 and by a vote of 366 to 81 the British Standard Time experiment was discontinued. It has since been alleged by groups in favour of change that the outcome of this vote was affected by powerful lobbying by farmers, the building industry and the Scots, who had overwhelmed a "silent majority". It has also been alleged that this lobbying was helped by the Press, who had produced on their front pages "lurid photographs of a few children injured on the way to school in the dark" [2].​

There's a later comment

The DoT Transport and Road Research Laboratory (TRRL) produced the report The Potential Effect on Road Casualties of [CET/SDST], in 1989 [17]. This considered data from the winters between 1968 and 1971 during the BST experiment. It also took into account the fact that overall casualty data had fallen between 1971 and 1989, and other factors such as traffic practices, lighting conditions and travel patterns which had changed, or which would change, under CET.​
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Analyses after the BST experiment indicated that it had been effective in reducing road traffic casualties.​
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More people were injured in the darker mornings, but fewer people were injured in the lighter afternoons. Throughout the year there are always more people injured in the late afternoon than in the morning, so the saving in the afternoons more than compensated for the increase in the mornings. This meant that there was a net reduction in casualties [17].​
 
Oh dear, this dates me, I was at secondary school when this experiment happened, and all it meant was that I travelled to school in the dark for a period instead of travelling back home in the dark (schools went on til at least 4 o'clock in those days, and I had an hours travel each way) I remember at the time, Scottish farmers mainly seemed to get the blame for lobbying to scrap it.
 
I don’t have strong opinions about daylight saving either way. I don’t think I’d miss the change if it were scrapped.

I certainly don’t consider it dangerous in terms of my diabetes management.
 
I certainly wouldn't miss it if it was scrapped...and my diabetes management wouldn't have to changed that's for sure.
 
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I wonder if there are Type 2s in the USA using much larger doses of insulin in pumps and perhaps that amplifies the problem, but going on holiday across time zones poses a much more significant change and I can't see anyone banning that!
 
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Robin said:
Oh dear, this dates me, I was at secondary school when this experiment happened, and all it meant was that I travelled to school in the dark for a period instead of travelling back home in the dark (schools went on til at least 4 o'clock in those days, and I had an hours travel each way) I remember at the time, Scottish farmers mainly seemed to get the blame for lobbying to scrap it.
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Dates you? I was working - not my first job either.

As far as pumps and daylight saving goes, we've just come back from France where it's an hour ahead of the UK and I changed the time on the ferry. No problem, no effort or anything. My phone changed itself.
 
I'd forgotten about that, Patti - its been 5 years now since we crossed the channel - but my brain felt fried once we went to Portugal by taking our time driving there across France and Spain, only to discover after we got there - they were on the same time as Britain! And then on one occasion in France we waited ages for somewhere to open only to find the clocks had either gone forward or gone back the previous night, but nobody had yet altered the town hall clock - bloke was on holiday/off sick or something!
 
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