Insulin Pumps

[Heb]

Hi

My name is Heather. I am 48 years old and have had type 1 diabetes for 34 years. I have been using an insulin pump for the past 18 months and would be interested to know how other diabetics cope with using it. I have found that I can control my sugar levels with it and achieve better levels (overall) but that it takes up so much of my time to achieve the good results and to keep on top of recording the sugar levels on a spreadsheet and reporting back to base.

 

[rubymurry]

Hi Heather,

I have been a diabetic for about forty years now, and have been on an insulin pump for 12 months. I now have better control, but still have a way to go. Sometimes the necessary record keeping gets me down, although it is necessary. By looking at the increase and decreases of BG, insulin, and food, it enables the doctors to see if you are coping successfully with the pump. I have not got it off to a fine art just yet, but is is improving all the time! I hope to pick up tips from this site, because many of us are coping or having similar problems. Take care, and good luck pumping!!🙂

 

[diagonall]

Hiya, I have had diabetes for 44 years. I have a Cozmo 1800 pump and love it.
I started pumping last May.
Record keeping is no different than when on MDI. I keep the record for me and no one else. I love the freedom the pump gives me and also the fine tunning for control. I use bovine neutral in my pump with very good effect.
1st 3 months I found the pump very time consuming whilst I sorted out and fine tuned my basals. Now it's just my pocket pancreas that gets a poke when I want feeding and or if I need to change any basals.

Heb if you have to send in your results can you not transfer your readings from the meter to your computer and either email or print of the results for your team?
Edited to add you can or should be able to upload all the pump settings/history to your computer via an Infra red port.

 

[kitemaster]

Uploading pump data

Hi Heb
You dont mention which pump you use but the one I have I can gain access via a USB wireless link, the nice thing about that is each button press is recorded and all the settings are posted on a secure website only accessible by myself and whoever requires the info ie: Diabetic cunsultant and nurse.
The added benefits are: No writing and paper recording, The data is live, and can be accessed remotely. The reports it also runs are excellent giving you a good graphical representation of your results... If your pump uses a similar system it may be worth considering it. Also if you need to print it out you can do that and thats so much neater than hand written.😛