Medtronic Silhouettes - Help!

[bigpurpleduck]

Hi all,

I switched to Silhouettes from Quicksets at the beginning of this year because I was having more and more Quicksets failing on me. Up 'til now, the Sils had been fab. No failures and more comfortable to wear & insert.

However, recently I've been having a bit of bleeding around the insertion site - not just after inserting or removing, but while the cannula is in. Today is really quite bad. I changed my set last night and seemed to have no problems. Just before lunchtime today I noticed a little bit of blood at the insertion site. Then I bolused for lunch, and as the bolus went in more blood appeared! I now have no idea how much insulin I'm getting - I'm guessing I'll be losing some of it with the blood?

I change my set every 3 days, sometimes 2. I haven't switched to a completely different site. I'm doing nothing different to normal. Why is this happening?!

 

[margie]

Hi Emma - I can't help I am afraid but I am sorry you are having all these problems. Is it possible to speak to your DSN he/she may have some ideas. I'm sure someone will turn up here to help but it could be a while.

Hope you can get things sorted out.

 

[Liz!]

Could your vitamin K level be low? That can cause thinning of the blood, eat lots of leafy green veg, if you aren't already. This will also help keep your bowel healthy and supplied with good bacteria better than any old tummy loving yogurt.

Also, some foods naturally thin the blood, so if you've been eating loads of strawberries, garlic, curry, ginger... that can thin the blood naturally.

 

[Pumper_Sue]

Hi Emma,
sorry to hear you have run into problems again
I know nothing about Silhouettes, so this is just a thought, do they come in different lengths? If so have you tried either a shorter or longer cannula?

 

[bigpurpleduck]

I don't think it's a problem with thin blood - my only issue is with my infusion sets. Fingerpricks and other cuts and scrapes seem to be fine.

Hi Emma,
sorry to hear you have run into problems again
I know nothing about Silhouettes, so this is just a thought, do they come in different lengths? If so have you tried either a shorter or longer cannula?

Different length cannula might be worth a go. But I'm not sure whether to try longer or shorter?

The Quicksets I used were 5mm, and the Sils 13mm. I like the longer length because they seem to kink and bend much less easily.

I have a couple of Mios which I haven't tried yet, might give them a go - but they're 5mm too so not too sure of them.

It seems that the Quicksets suit my waist/hips better (which is where I like to wear my sets most), and the Sils suit my flabbier bits, i.e. tummy. Might try them in my thigh, though I think I'd need longer tubing for that.

There are so many combinations of set styles, cannula lengths and tubing lengths that I have no idea what to try next!

 

[Adrienne]

Funnily enough they use Sils for little ones. However we loved them. We now use Mios and would not use anything else now. The insertion is so much easier than the sils for Jessica to do herself (if she wanted to) and easier to transport as well as in their own cases.

The Mios are 6 mm or 9 mm. We use the 6 mm but a friend of ours can only use the 9 mm as they kink, most people that use the 6 mm on the CWD group have had no problems with the 6 mm Mios but did with the 6 mm quicksets.

You should like the Mios if you liked the quicksets. They are a cross between quick sets and sils.

No idea why you had the problem with the sils. We used to have a 'bleeder' once in a while but it always stopped after pressure. We occasionally had blood back up the line but I just primed it out and hey presto no problems.