Pro's & Con's please

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Jess Howard

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hi have been using the novo pen 4 times a day for the last 26 years and am becoming more Intrigued about the various pumps available now and whether the pump regimen would be something I could get on with. Stuckinthemindsetofthenovopen.com
 
Very briefly:

Pros:
You can adjust your basal by the hour to tailor it exactly to your requirements, so you have more when you need it and less when you don't. Which should produce more stable levels. You can set different basal patterns for different days too, e.g. Work and weekend, or shift patterns
You have much more freedom to eat what you want when you want, as the cannula stays in all the time you could have 20 snacks a day if you really wanted instead of 3 meals as you only have to push a few buttons to give yourself a dose, no sticking needles in each time.
Things like illness and exercise are much easier to deal with as you can shift your whole basal up or down by a % temporarily.
Also you can spread out your meal doses by anything up to 12 hours which makes it easier to deal with foods which are slow to digest and might cause a hypo if you injected the whole dose at once.

Cons:
You are attached to the pump all the time (although most people get used to this very quickly and hardly notice it after a while)
You need to test your blood min 5 times a day, if anything goes wrong you are at higher risk of DKA as you have no long acting insulin (pump uses short acting only and delivers tiny doses every few minutes for your basal, so if it stops working suddenly you have nothing!). However as long as you keep an eye on things you should be able to sort out any problems before your blood sugars hit danger levels
Hard work, especially for the first few weeks, it's a completely different way of thinking and will take a while to learn about it all and get it set up exactly to your requirements. Then when you do finally get it set up right it won't stay that way for long, diabetes never stays the same, sometimes it feels like you are constantly fiddling!

Having said that though, most people who have changed onto pumps would never want to give them back, I think I've only met one person on this forum who really didn't get on with theirs. I would highly recommend them, they give you so many more ways of managing your diabetes. Hope that helps 🙂
 
It would take 500 wild horses to get my pump off me. T1 since the sixties & the pump is miles better. If I am busy at work & have no time for lunch I don't bother(self-employed), reduce bolus or increase with a push of a button. If I want to eat that bag of crisps again a push of a button. If I want to go out on mountain bike I am not controlled with insulin I had 2hrs before by pen🙂
 
I'd certainly fight you for mine. I was injecting perhaps ten times daily - ouch!!! So I feel much less like a pin cushion. My control is better too. I forget its there most of the time.
 
Uncertainty over pumps before you start is pretty much universal. As is the feeling that you could *never* go back to injections once you have spent some time getting used to pump therapy (see also: the universal desire to lob your pump out of the window several times in the first year!)

Diabetes is still frustrating and very annoying, but a pump makes it a lot easier to deal with in subtle ways. They are not for everyone, but if you are prepared to put the effort in they are the closest thing we have to a functioning pancreas (especially if you have the cash to self-fund CGM!)
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
Uncertainty over pumps before you start is pretty much universal. As is the feeling that you could *never* go back to injections once you have spent some time getting used to pump therapy (see also: the universal desire to lob your pump out of the window several times in the first year!)
Click to expand...
 
ROFL Mike! How very true - I always tell people not to be at all surprised if they feel exactly how they felt when they were first diagnosed - which I refer to as that horrid 'alone' feeling - "Lost, Alone & Unloved". You may also remember that eventually, those feelings wore off and
you didn't have to go and have a weep for no particular reason. That took several years for me in the first place whereas it was only about a couple of moths with the pump. All the stuff you do right now just instinctively because you've done it before, so many times, you don't even realise you are doing it, when X or Y happens - when those very same Xs or Ys happen but you've just had your pump - you have to specifically THINK about 'what to do'. At the moment, no thought/the application of logic, is actually required because it's what you always do in that situation. It is actually the same logic that you need to apply in these situations, it's just that the database you are working from has changed ! However - 'what to do on a pump' soon replaces the current ingrained 'what to do on MDI' and it ceases to be a worry.

Plus of course - you can always ask on here if you want a second opinion ! (You'll actually get about 27 answers in which case go with the majority) (as long as it's sensible people who know what they are talking about, who reply LOL)

Now - I have to specifically THINK about 'what to do on MDI' when someone asks a question I know I actually know the answer to, so should be able to help - rather than starting to type without taking another breath. See what I mean?

NB Something really weird happened there and I couldn't put Mike's quote and my reply, all in one post.
 
Jess Howard said:
Hi have been using the novo pen 4 times a day for the last 26 years and am becoming more Intrigued about the various pumps available now and whether the pump regimen would be something I could get on with. Stuckinthemindsetofthenovopen.com
Click to expand...
If I were you I would get my name on one 😎
 
There's only one way I'd stop using the pump, and that would be if a cure came around. It's not Perfect, but so much better than the pen. It's flexible, and I've had my best ever sugars on the pump.

The only downside I've experienced is two things. My skin is very sensitive, and so I have to change the cannula more often than most (every two days) and it tends to Itch after I take the cannula off.
Sometimes my husband rolls onto my pump in the night and so the cannula snags when I turn over, but that is so rare.

Honestly though, it's the best thing ever for me. I love it. The testing isn't an issue as I test excessively anyway. In fact, I've found I am testing less and I'm trusting in my sugars. I used to test 10-12 times a day.
 
A bit of work at the beginning but as you've been injecting for years, this should not be too difficult. If you go into it with a positive attitude you will make it work and then life just gets better. Like Hobie, I would never give mine up and go back to injections - I feel so much better with the pump and it fits into my life with no problem. But it does take a few weeks to get used to it. Good luck...
 
I must agree. You still have to make the effort to stay on track but I wouldn't want to give mine up now.
 
Thanks for sharing your experiences. My blood does appear to be a bit AWOL at the moment maybe my bodys ready for a change
 
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