Pump users

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Amberzak

Amberzak

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
I will soon be one of you. 🙂

I've got a few hoops to jump through, but she said I will definitely be getting the insulin pump. Woooohoo. 7 years of fighting for it.

I'm thinking of going for the aviva combo pump. What do you guys use? Any advice for me?

I'm going back in October and November, and they've given me some questions to answer on carb counting. If I can prove I understand carb counting, I can skip the carb counting course and jump straight to the insulin pump course. 🙂
 
Wow Amber that's fantastic news, bet you wish you'd changed hospitals ages ago!

We have the Combo and it's fab. The best bit being that the test kit acts as a remote control for the pump, so you do your test, immediately tell it you want a bolus, put your carbs in and it will calculate the correct dose for you (+ or - a correction amount) and then it's only a couple more button pushes to do the dose. No need to fish the pump out from under your clothes! You can do all sorts of things like temporary basal rates (if you are ill or exercising for example), extended boluses and so on. It can take quite a bit of hard work to get it all set up correctly for you, and I think quite a lot of new pumpers go through a phase of hating it and wanting to chuck it out of the window; but if you can persevere it can be life changing, and certainly gives you much more freedom to eat what you want when you want. E.g. If you want to have 20 snacks instead of 3 large meals a day you can quite easily because you don't have to stick a needle in each time! You can fine tune things much better too, boluses go to the nearest 0.1 unit and basal can be even more finely tuned.

You'll still get hypos and highs sometimes, nothing is perfect, and sometimes it feels like you are almost constantly having to fiddle with settings, but I think it's worth the effort.

Good luck 🙂
 
All the main pumps are similar. My one is a Medtronic I would go with the one they (DSN) go with. I down load my pump results to my nurse who reads the performance before I go to appointment. Miles better. Good luck its a pain the first couple of weeks but really worth it 🙂
 
Amber you are going to love it, you won't ever go back on MDI once you've had a pump!! I'm on the Aviva combo for 3 months now and can't believe the difference. Things are far more stable! As Sally says you'll still get highs and lows but it'll be due to not counting carbs right etc whereas on MDI I found you could have random readings and no apparent reason for them due to the absorption of lantus. I've found the lows aren't as bad either, again due to the absorption. It's really great, you'll never look back. I'm excited for you 🙂
 
That's good news Amberzak. I am not in the pump club but it's nice to know you have finally got a good result.
 
Yes, I'm very exciting. They did warn me that there's lots of fine tuning especially in the first few months and I need to be disciplined. They also said they know I will be.

They've given me the choice of which pump to use. She did say there is one for when I go swimming that I won't need to take off, but I already have the aviva expert meter so I'm used to dealing with it.

I'm on about 8-9 injections a day to control my sugars at the moment. I'm doing loads of correction doses in the evening.

I have some questions. How do you sleep with it. Have you (or your daughter) ever accidentally pulled it out during sleep?

And do you still carry a pen around just in case the pump ever fails while you're out.
 
Hi Amberzak I'm so glad that you're getting the pump. I got my combo two years ago and it is the best thing ever. if I leave the house for three hours or more I take the pen with me in case there is a pump problem. Always good to have a spare cannula and inserter with you as well and the battery set - but they're not that big for carrying around. I've never pulled the pump out whilst in bed - I wear mine on a spiebelt. I have caught the tubing on door handles three times and that has pulled the cannula out, but each time it was completely painless.
 
Brilliant news! I have the Aviva Combo too and it's great. I haven't used any others but can't think any would be better. It allows so much flexibility, the Bluetooth function is great and makes it discrete too.
I'm very happy for you! :D
 
Hi Amberzak

I do tend to keep spare pens in my bag all the time, plus another one at school, although they only get used once in a blue moon - the one time you forget them though would probably be when you needed them! We also have spare cannulas and inserter at school and I keep batteries with me as well, although we get 3 months usage out of one set of lithium ones! The Combo actually takes standard AA batteries so if all else failed you could buy some; get Roche to send you theirs though when you order cannulas etc, you get them free and they last longer!

I don't always take spare cannulas with me, it depends how far we are going and how long for. If we are staying local and can get home quickly then I wouldn't bother. If we're going anywhere overnight then I definitely would. But i've always got the pens to fall back on.

At night daughter has a little cuddly toy to put her pump in - the Roche rep gave it to her, but I think you can buy "pump pets". She puts it in that and then just lets it trail round the bed. We've had a handful of incidents of cannula falling off/tube disconnecting from cannula at night, but very rarely and I think only when they weren't attached properly anyway. We did have a lot of problems with cannulas for a while, but it all stemmed from one incident where the inserter didn't fire properly and it was all a bit traumatic, with the result that she was then terrified of cannula insertions for about four months and we had a bit of a nightmare getting her to let us put them in, and because she was tensed up I think quite often they didn't go in right and we had a lot of failures. Eventually it dawned on her that it would be better to get it over and done with quickly, because a) it's less painful and b) cannula more likely to go in properly, so since then because she's more relaxed about it all we've had very few failures.

I think the original incident was a bit of an unlucky fluke which is unlikely to be repeated so I hope that doesn't put you off! We certainly have had no insertion problems since.

Hope that helps 🙂
 
Great news! 🙂 Any pump is going to change your life for the better. We have the Veo - this has the technological edge when used in combination with CGMS, as it has the low glucose suspend option. The next iteration will be a predictive low glucose suspend function. Currently the closest pump on the market to the artificial pancreas.
 
Sally71 said:
Hi Amberzak

I do tend to keep spare pens in my bag all the time, plus another one at school, although they only get used once in a blue moon - the one time you forget them though would probably be when you needed them! We also have spare cannulas and inserter at school and I keep batteries with me as well, although we get 3 months usage out of one set of lithium ones! The Combo actually takes standard AA batteries so if all else failed you could buy some; get Roche to send you theirs though when you order cannulas etc, you get them free and they last longer!

I don't always take spare cannulas with me, it depends how far we are going and how long for. If we are staying local and can get home quickly then I wouldn't bother. If we're going anywhere overnight then I definitely would. But i've always got the pens to fall back on.

At night daughter has a little cuddly toy to put her pump in - the Roche rep gave it to her, but I think you can buy "pump pets". She puts it in that and then just lets it trail round the bed. We've had a handful of incidents of cannula falling off/tube disconnecting from cannula at night, but very rarely and I think only when they weren't attached properly anyway. We did have a lot of problems with cannulas for a while, but it all stemmed from one incident where the inserter didn't fire properly and it was all a bit traumatic, with the result that she was then terrified of cannula insertions for about four months and we had a bit of a nightmare getting her to let us put them in, and because she was tensed up I think quite often they didn't go in right and we had a lot of failures. Eventually it dawned on her that it would be better to get it over and done with quickly, because a) it's less painful and b) cannula more likely to go in properly, so since then because she's more relaxed about it all we've had very few failures.

I think the original incident was a bit of an unlucky fluke which is unlikely to be repeated so I hope that doesn't put you off! We certainly have had no insertion problems since.

Hope that helps 🙂
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Aww the pump pet is so cute.
 
That's very happy news for you Amberzak 🙂

Which ever pump you choose will be great. I've used a pump for 13 years now, Roche for 9 years and Medtronic for 4 and can't ever remember pulling a cannula out in my sleep, I have pulled out a fair few by getting the tubing caught around door and drawer handles but it is a swift way to remove a cannula and doesn't hurt, it's just annoying.

I carry a spare cannula, inserter, batteries and a pen with an in date insulin cartridge in just for peace of mind.

I'm sure you won't look back once you have got your basal rates and carb ratios sorted, it just takes a bit of time and lots of testing to get there. Good luck with it all 🙂
 
I have only pulled a cannula out once. I work in lofts quite a bit & was climbing out of a loft & cought the tube on the ladders. It made me jump ! 😱 It is good for a lot of stick 😉
 
Any further news?

I have pulled my cannula out by accident only twice in a year. Once was last Sat when I had forgotten that I'd put it in my bra because my trousers had no pockets. Took the bra off without thinking before bed and the thing dived for the floor pulling the cannula out! Another time I rushed into the ladies in a hurry and yanked hard on the tubing whilst pulling jeans down. I now carry a spare cannula around but don't bother with the inserter because push comes to shove you can do it manually.
 
Pattidevans said:
Any further news?

I have pulled my cannula out by accident only twice in a year. Once was last Sat when I had forgotten that I'd put it in my bra because my trousers had no pockets. Took the bra off without thinking before bed and the thing dived for the floor pulling the cannula out! Another time I rushed into the ladies in a hurry and yanked hard on the tubing whilst pulling jeans down. I now carry a spare cannula around but don't bother with the inserter because push comes to shove you can do it manually.
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Patti, just use a bit of mefix tape a couple of centimetres from the connection. This stops cannulas being pulled out 🙂
 
I don't think x stone against a bit sticky tape works. I know the one that's going to get the better 🙂
 
To be honest I seem to have an allergic reaction to all the kinds of tape and I've tried several, but 2 instances of pulling the cannula out in a whole year to me is minor against an itchy patch.
 
Pattidevans said:
To be honest I seem to have an allergic reaction to all the kinds of tape and I've tried several, but 2 instances of pulling the cannula out in a whole year to me is minor against an itchy patch.
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Use some cavilon spray it's a barrier spray works wonders.
HOBIE said:
I don't think x stone against a bit sticky tape works. I know the one that's going to get the better 🙂
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Not to sure what you mean HOBIE but if you are saying the tape doesn't work then you are wrong it's standard practice so a cannula doesn't get pulled out. I've caught my tubing a couple of times and all has been fine as the tape stopped any pressure on the cannula. I also dislodged my pump when up a ladder in the barns retrieving hay the pump dropped like a stone and was left dangling by the tape. All I did was say a rude word and reeled the pump back in. Tube was stretched so just replaced that, cannula was fine though, at roughly £10 a time even though it's not my money I resent replacing it before it's due time when a bit of tape solves the problem.
 
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