Hi I'm Thelma

[Thelma Roberts]

I have been type I for 45 yrs.
Lots of ups and downs (pardon
the pun!)
At present using Humolog 3times daily,and treshiba once a day.
I am thinking about pump use,and was going to discuss it with my consultant when I have a video appointment in December,just wonder what would be benefits.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Thelma ( aka )Kate

 

[ColinUK]

Hi @Thelma Roberts and welcome to the forum!

I'm not a pump user so can't offer any wisdom but I do know that quite a few regulars in here do use one so I'm sure someone will be along in a bit to talk through suggestions and issues etc that they've experience.

 

[Annemarie]

Welcome Thelma! I’m also keen to find out about them

 

[SB2015]

I have been type I for 45 yrs.
Lots of ups and downs (pardon
the pun!)
At present using Humolog 3times daily,and treshiba once a day.
I am thinking about pump use,and was going to discuss it with my consultant when I have a video appointment in December,just wonder what would be benefits.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Thelma ( aka )Kate

Hi @Thelma Roberts

I am a newbie compared to you, having only been diagnosed at the age of 53.
I started on Multiple Daily Injections (MDI) but found that it was very difficult to match my overnight needs and also inflexible during the day. Switching to a half unit pen helped a bit but in the end I started to look at getting a pump, and I would never want to go back to MDI now.

On a pump I found that:

• I got rid of most overnight hypos because I could programme the basal rate on an hourly basis, and make small adjustments of as little as 0.01 units to deal with any night time blips. This does take some work at the start and you continue to need to make adjustments as things change.
• The facility to deliver my Bolus in three different ways (standard, extended or multiwave) enabled me to more closely match my Bolus to the foods that I was eating, extending the Bolus for a fatty meal, using a multiwave for a mixed meal, ... My Bolus is also a lot more accurate as it will be calculated to the nearest 0.1 rather than having to round up to the nearest 0.5on my half unit pen.
• I can temporarily turn down or up my basal rate for any length of time I want to which enabled me to be more spontaneous, only needing about an hour for this to have an impact, whereas on MDI I needed t9 know what I was doing during the day first thing in the morning.
• My pump is controlled by Bluetooth from my handset so never need to access the pump during the day, apart from blood tests done no one would know I was delivering insulin.
• When ill I just use temporary basal rates to increase the background insulin, and find there is a lot less to think about.

I am sure there are other benefits that I no longer notice. But I did notice the drop in my HbA1c of 10 when I switched to the pump. It simply improved my control and also increased the amount of time I was in range, although the Libre also had a big impact on that.

It does take a bit of getting used to. I have a tubes pump now which means I can put it wherever I want. Mine is in a pouch which I hook onto my bra strap. The cannula I put somewhere on my abdomen, and often forget where it is. In bed I just put it the bed and the tubing is long enough that it does not pull. There are also tubeless options that others will no doubt tell you about.

So I would say it is well worth considering a pump.

 

[Ralph-YK]

Welcome to the forum Thelma.

I am thinking about pump use,and was going to discuss it with my consultant when I have a video appointment in December,just wonder what would be benefits.

@everydayupsanddowns might have some info

Lots of ups and downs (pardon the pun!)

See everydayupsanddowns 🙂

 

[helli]

Hi @Thelma Roberts
Welcome to the forum

@SB2015 lists some of the great benefits of pumping.
I have been pumping for 6 years and would add
- the ability to suspend my basal to avoid hypos when exercising
- the ability to micro-dose. I can dose 0.05 units of insulin which makes it easy to make small tweaks and corrections and easier to make small variations to my food bolus

That said, the pump is not a silver bullet. It took me some time to get my basal sorted and I still tweak it when I find the difference stress, illness, exercise, hormones, weather, etc. make
And it is not the end of injecting forever - pumps can fail, not often, but they can fail. So you need to be ale to switch back to MDI at short notice under a bit stress. And, as you have no background basal without pumping, your blood sugars can go high very quickly which increases the chance of DKA if you don't keep a close eye on things.
When you travel (when things get back to normal ), you have to carry a lot more supplies with you - pump supplies to change your pump set and backup pens in case it fails.

I love my pump but I wanted to make sure you are aware of the downsides.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @Thelma Roberts

Pumps are offered based on national criteria as laid out in NICE TA151 (which you can read here if interested https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ta151)

The short version from memort is that if you struggle with hypos that are unpredictable and that worry you enough to have workarounds (eg making sure you have high BG at certain times of day)

or

If despite your best efforts, structured education like DAFNE and using analogue insulins you can’t seem to get your HbA1c below 69mmol/mol [8.5%]

and

If you have a supportive consultant who agrees that it will work for you

You should be able to access pump therapy.

Others have pretty much summed up the big differences and benefits I saw.

I wrote this after about 6months as a sort of ‘compare and contrast’ with MDI

Face-off: MDI vs Pump

Because no two days with type 1 diabetes are the same. Except when they are. The ups and downs of life with T1D.

www.everydayupsanddowns.co.uk

...and in subsequent years I have found infusion sets that suit me much better and I very rarely have delivery issues any more.

Good luck with your pump research, and do check the Pumping section of the forum for lots more threads of people’s experiences - including a mammoth thread called ‘Love my pump’ 🙂

 

[Paulbreen]

Like you 40+ years of T1 and plenty of ups and downs too, this is my CGM &pump readout from this evening I had dinner at about 6pm which had 70g carbs and some blueberries and bananas at 8:15, was about 17g more of carbs, I bolused for the carbs so I’d say the pump will help you a lot