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I've been reading various threads regarding having pumps fitted and no-one has a bad word to say about them and indeed it has lowered a lot of peoples averages. I am a newly diagnosed T1 and just getting used to injecting but it occurs to me that if these are so successful why is everyone not offered them? Is it solely a cost thing?
Getting hold of a pump is basically a postcode lottery. Where are you based? It pretty much comes down to the cost of pumps, which is much more expensive than injection therapy - however on the other hand they offer a better chance of getting good control and reducing the risk of complications.
Just to give you an idea of cost, on top of insulin and test strips which you'd get anyway, there is the initial cost of a pump (all of them are about ?3k give or take) plus the consumables which can be over ?1k per year - hence when the finance people look at those figures, they don't want people on pumps!
It's good - in my opinion - to try injection therapy, as this can work really well for a lot of people. But in my opinion everyone who wants a pump/is suitable for one should have access to them.
They'll be able to give you the lowdown on pump availability in your area, although from what I've heard in the past it's even more difficult getting one in Scotland than it is in England Good luck though! 🙂
I've been reading various threads regarding having pumps fitted and no-one has a bad word to say about them and indeed it has lowered a lot of peoples averages. I am a newly diagnosed T1 and just getting used to injecting but it occurs to me that if these are so successful why is everyone not offered them? Is it solely a cost thing?
In The USA and the continent the use of pumps is something like 40%, in Britain it is much lower. Pumps are also cheaper abroad.
That is partly because of the resistance to pumps of T1s themselves.
Pumps have been around for decades but only really became viable when rapid acting insulin analogues were introduced in the mid 1990s.
The reaction among many old established T1s at that time was that they had been injecting man and boy for forty or fifty years and nothing new or different could be tried. Injecting three or four times a day worked so why change it ? was their attitude.
DUk and the NHS learned from debacle in the 1990s and have consistently pushed new treatments and techniques determined not to let conservatism and inertia stifle progress e.g. the inhaled insulin Exubera in 2006. That reluctance to switch to pumps when they first came in as a real option kept the price up in Britain because there was so few of them but the price is probably also part of "Rip-off Britain".
It seems that many children are going on to pumps nowadays, which might indicate a change of strategy, "get em young" rather than trying to persuade long established T1s onto new fangled pumps.
Getting hold of a pump in Scotland is particularly hard - NICE guidelines don't apply in the same way so it is hard to get hold of one. IPAG are a great start though, definitely get in touch with them!
Good luck though! 