Medtronic 640g Insulin Flow Alert

[chisterette]

Really hoping someone can shed some light on this for me...

Saturday morning I planned to change my site for the first time since inserting in the hopital on wednesday afternoon (new pump user!). Everything seemed to go smoothly, I had the medtronic instructions out just in case I forgot a step and seemingly connected to the new cannula without fail... hooray!

5 minutes later I went to bolus for breakfast and 1.5u in I get an Insulin Flow error with the statement to change my cannula. So I do... everything seems to go smoothly and I bolus for the remder of my breakfast that didn't go through.

1 hour later I check my BG as feeling a bit wobbly and am at 18mmol. I correct using the pump thinking I miscalculated how much insulin had gone in. 30mins later and I'm at 24mmol. Crap.

I happened to be out at the Rugby so popped into the first aid and chatted with the nurse about what to do. I ended up correcting with an injection as neither of us trusted the pump but were loathsome to change again as I had changed earlier in the day.

Bloods go back to normalish before bed and I woke up within range. I bolus for breakfast today and spike 1 hour later to 22mmol. Panic.

I decide to correct with a pen and change the cannula again... I pull the damn thing out and see that it's bent at a 90 deg angle and there's a fair bit of blood. Other than this, the change goes fairly smoothly and starts to bring my bloods down again. 3 hours in and I get ANOTHER insulin flow alarm and have had to change it again (cannula was bent). 😡 I'm 1 hour post change now and not sure what I am doing wrong or how to avoid this happening! I'm running out of supplies as Medtronic haven't got back to me about my registration.

4 changes in 2 days... this can't be what pumping is like, surely?

Can anyone help? Thanks in advance

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

What a nightmare!

Sounds like the infusion sets you are using are not suitable for you. As a new user I would assume that your hospital will be in close contact for the next few weeks at least. It would be worth asking to try different lengths, styles and possibly angled options.

Did you start on Quicksets? I know they work OK for some people, but I had all sorts of bother with them. See here: https://www.everydayupsanddowns.co.uk/2012/09/set-changes.html

There are more options these days including angled Mio30s

 

[chisterette]

What a nightmare!

Sounds like the infusion sets you are using are not suitable for you. As a new user I would assume that your hospital will be in close contact for the next few weeks at least. It would be worth asking to try different lengths, styles and possibly angled options.

Did you start on Quicksets? I know they work OK for some people, but I had all sorts of bother with them. See here: https://www.everydayupsanddowns.co.uk/2012/09/set-changes.html

There are more options these days including angled Mio30s

Thanks for the quick reply. 🙂 This all came out of the blue as the three days previous my bloods were in range 90% of the time and I didn't even notice the cannula!

I'm supposed to go in on wednesday but I'm on holiday so can't make the appointment but if that's the case may be worth seeing if I can get one before I go away. I've got the bog-standard one they give in the starter pack... the MiniMed Quick Set with the Quick-serter.

 

[Matt Cycle]

I started on the regular mio's but had occasional issues with bent cannulas (nothing like what you're experiencing though). I eventually swapped to mio 30's which as Mike says are angled and help if you're a slim build. Another issue could be the ratios. When these were first set up by the Medtronic rep I had to increase these over the next few days as they were on the conservative side and I found my levels were high. Hope you get it sorted as it's definitely worth it.

 

[Pumper_Sue]

I've got the bog-standard one they give in the starter pack... the MiniMed Quick Set with the Quick-serter.

Can you insert them without the inserter? You might find that works for you. I use angled sets from animas and manually insert them as the inserter was as good as useless.