I Enjoy It When Pumping!

[David Jones]

Well I thought that I better try and be funny/humourous with the title, as being put onto one of these pumps really seems to having an impact on how my diabetes is controlled. Prior to it I ended up time after time in A & E due to hypo's OR hypers (and not rebounds) where as now the box works it all out for me - genius really!
It has crossed my mind though, as my blood sugars have been as low as 1.7 on several occassions, what would happen if I seriously messed up the background rate and did 8.0 instead of 3.0 due to being distracted etc I know that those two figures are possibly a bit too large, but just as an exacple!
Could that actually kill me? Would I get woken up, as one of my problems previously was the loss of all warnings. Would it not be painful and therefore that wake me? Please let me know any thoughts ideas or knowledge.
Thanks

 

[trophywench]

Hi David, well on my pump you change every hour of your basal rate separately - but certainly if I did 8.0u for an hour instead of my usual eg 0.4 - I'd be deeply hypo within half an hour.

However, when changing basal rates, the programming screen firstly tells me my TDD - currently 11.04u and from there I then access the hourly rates. Having done the changes, I accept them and it brings me back to the TDD. Which I also have to 'accept' for the change to be recorded. So if I even changed ONE hour to 8.0 the TDD would now be 18-point-something - and I'd go Whaaaaaat? 😱

Plus, my basal rates change by 0.01u per button press, and you can't leave it pressed and speed it up, it's individual presses. So it would take 50 presses to get from 3.0 to 8.0 ! - you'd hardly do that inadvertently .....

Pumps are not idiot-proof though ....... 😛

Loss of hypo symptoms does not happen where a person has 'odd' lows. It is (normally) a sign that they are too low for a fair amount of each 24 hours ....... You (usually) get em back by running higher for a month or two.

 

[Pumper_Sue]

Hi David,
each step with a basal change or a bolus is more than 1 button press, so you would have to be pretty stupid and thus not fit to use a pump if you made such a huge mistake. Thus you would not have a pump in the first place 🙂

For night time hypos and the worry of not waking up, have you not got a dead mans handle so to speak on your pump?
IE, you set the pump to alarm and then switch off if no button pushed within ex hours.

 

[Northerner]

Hi David, I don't have a pump, but just wanted to welcome yo to the forum 🙂