Should I get the pump (Type1 Diabetic)

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Hello helli what I described is what happens with the omnipod Dash system and that is what the poster ks76 had asked about. So far from looking at the manual index it gives no info on extending by 8 hrs or similar time periods only stating the pod will last 72 hrs. After 72 Hrs the alarm sounds until it is changed about every 5 mins if it also detects that the insulin has run out it will begin to screech at you to take action, the screech is much more annoying and not ignorable.
From what you say yours doesn't keep alarming until you take action, does it only alarm once and then not bother you any more?

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mark king said:
Hello helli what I described is what happens with the omnipod Dash system and that is what the poster ks76 had asked about. So far from looking at the manual index it gives no info on extending by 8 hrs or similar time periods only stating the pod will last 72 hrs. After 72 Hrs the alarm sounds until it is changed about every 5 mins if it also detects that the insulin has run out it will begin to screech at you to take action, the screech is much more annoying and not ignorable.
From what you say yours doesn't keep alarming until you take action, does it only alarm once and then not bother you any more?

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I can turn my audible alarm off (which I have) but it also displays a message to tell me to change the pump which I can clear until 8 hours.
The pump definitely does not stop until 80 hours after changing the set although the manual says 72 hours.
As i have said, there is no “extension”. It is the full lifetime of the patch.
I have spoken to someone with the Omnipod. My understanding is it has the same feature in this regard as the Medtrum.
 
And there am I with so many non absorbent bits of anatomy- I'm asked to change my cannula every 2 days, so my handset is set up to tell me to do that every 2 days instead of 3. Is it the Omnipod that the minimum fill is 85U - 3.5 days worth of insulin for me, so I'd be chucking unused and unusable insulin away all the while - which I don't find at all acceptable! Another pump I considered was about that minimum too - was it the t-slim?
 
trophywench said:
Another pump I considered was about that minimum too - was it the t-slim?
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Yup, I think it’s about 50u minumum on the tSlim after you’ve completed the tubing fill. And the tSlim always leaves some in the weird reservoir/bag thinghy which is doesn’t deliver (which is infuriating when the pump reports 0u and stops all deliveries even though you *know* there are a few units left). You don’t get a grace period like there was on the Medtronic, with the tandem 0u means the pump says 0u and delivery stops. I love my tSlim, but the reservoir stuff is easily the worst part about it.

They recommend adding 45u for tubing fill and spare over and above what you expect to need for the 2-3 days.

I winced at 45u going missing every set change in the early weeks. But Im getting numb to it now 😱
 
Yes Jenny & Mike I too am not happy about dumping useable insulin on my pump change. My Omnipod tells me what IOB I have when I change and there is always some. It seems a waste but like you Mike I've become numbed to it..

Helli it would be good if I could safely extend my pod time as it would use up more of the IOB and be more efficient but I haven't found any reference to this in the manual.
Mine is the latest version called Dash but a Google search found some related comments to their earlier version which says you can over drive it un-officially for another 8 hours, but I haven't found any comments on this with the Dash version.

IOB = Insulin On Board

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EDIT Helli here you go this is ref the earlier Omnipod.
How long can you wear an omnipod after it expires?
8 hours

Omnipods literature states you can still use it 8 hours past the pod expiration time. So if it expires at 8:00 p.m., you have until 4:00 a.m. before it completely shuts down and gives you the alarm of death (where it will continually beep) until you change it out.29 Jan 2018

Mmmmnnnnn interesting
 
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Hello helli I've just found this "customer service communication" which may help explain the situation better.

The recommended use of the Omnipod DASH® Pods is for up to 72 hours. As intended by the design, at 72 hours of wear, a Pod expiry alarm will sound from the Omnipod DASH® PDM. If the Pod is still in use, this will continue to sound every subsequent hour during the 72 to 79 hours of wear until the Pod is deactivated. If a Pod has been worn for over 72 hours, after a new Pod is activated, the Pod expiry alarm will continue to sound again on the PDM with no associated notification. This will continue to occur each hour with the new Pod for up to seven times.

To prevent this unnecessary alarm happening or continuing to occur if you change your Pod after 72 hours, we recommend pressing the side power button to switch the PDM off and turn it back on again, after your Pod change. This will not affect your PDM settings or insulin delivery.

This communication is a recent 2021 one.

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Hi @mark king
Sounds like the OmniPod Dash is similar to the Medtrum in terms of that extra 8 hours.
I am happy to have opened up new opportunities for you.

However, this makes no difference to IOB - the IOB reported by my pump is the active bolus insulin that we have "on board" or in our body rather than the spare insulin left in our pump when we change a cartridge/patch/pod.
IOB is unaffected by set changes.

My Medrum pump also reports the insulin remaining in the pump but it doesn't seem to give it a name - just an icon.
 
My 'invented by Abraham' Combo says that I at this minute have 151u left in the reservoir. I don't get any beeping until that's 20u (at under 11u daily basal plus whatever I decide to eat bolusing so I can leave it nearly another 24hrs before I even need to get a vial out of the fridge in preparation for a leisurely new reservoir & tubing filling & change ...... Yawn.)
 
Agreed @helli My pump reports the same regarding IOB, and I thought it was the same for all pumps. I have no evidence for that but the term “Insulin On Board” is widely used and I’ve only seen it used to refer to how much insulin one has ‘on board’ one’s body - ie that’s still acting.

For insulin left in the cartridge I just have an icon and a number before a ‘U’ for units.

I’m sure this is a cardinal sin of diabetes/pumping but because I have a tubed pump, I sometimes leave the insulin in the cartridge and carry on using it (with appropriate cannula changes) for a number of days. According to the pump company, I’m not alone in doing that. I haven’t noticed any deterioration with the insulin. I just find it convenient sometimes to get a week or so out of a cartridge/reservoir.
 
I never reused the cartridge but I used to syphon the insulin out of one cartridge an put it in the next when I did a set change.
I now just don't fill the cartridge to full (usually about 120U when it takes 200U). I still throw some away (I use less than 30U per day) but Fiasp doesn't seem to like the syphoning as much as NovoSluggish did.
 
Inka said:
Agreed @helli My pump reports the same regarding IOB, and I thought it was the same for all pumps. I have no evidence for that but the term “Insulin On Board” is widely used and I’ve only seen it used to refer to how much insulin one has ‘on board’ one’s body - ie that’s still acting.

For insulin left in the cartridge I just have an icon and a number before a ‘U’ for units.

I’m sure this is a cardinal sin of diabetes/pumping but because I have a tubed pump, I sometimes leave the insulin in the cartridge and carry on using it (with appropriate cannula changes) for a number of days. According to the pump company, I’m not alone in doing that. I haven’t noticed any deterioration with the insulin. I just find it convenient sometimes to get a week or so out of a cartridge/reservoir.
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And me - did it for 5 years with my first Combo and doing it again now with my new (exactly the same) Combo. Mostly don't bother to change the tubing either. So far as I and you all know, I don't appear to have dropped dead yet. I do not like filling cartridges, I never enjoyed filling syringes either TBH, mainly because I do not have sufficiently strong fingers to 'flick' a bit of plastic - or glass!! - to get any bubbles up to the pointy end to squirt em out and away. Lands up hurting me so first hunt a metal table knife with a decently heavy handle (fond of my Viners Profile table knives for this purpose as one can hold them by the rounded, slightly serrated blade and wield the handle to clunk smartly on the side of the reservoir to raise said bubble(s) - bit of a palaver every flippin 6 days all in all, so I choose not to do it. Was precisely why I loved my Insight ! (and the the original handset eating it's batteries; 7 replacements within 10 days didn't deter me - bloody thing was quite obviously defective; into every life a little rain must fall and I'm not wont to make a drama out of a crisis, no point is there?) did not change that.
 
Hi @mark king

Both my Combo and Medtronic show me how much insulin is still working from earlier deliveries.
Combo referred to Insulin on Board, and the Medtronic- Active Insulin. These mean slightly different things as one includes Bolus doses and the other only refers to corrections.

There is also a status symbol which shows me how much insulin is left in the cartridge. With the Medtronic I have a smaller cartridge and can choose how much to fill it with. There is still a bit of spare left when I change. I get an alarm when it gets a to 30 units but can get through the night before doing the change as that amount would give me a whole day of use.

The dif
 
Ps. I will sometimes change the cannula and not the tubing, but then I waste the tubing as with Medtronic they come packaged together, whereas Roche packaged these separately.
 
My pump has a setting when to alarm if the insulin gets low. Like @SB2015 i use less than 30 units a day so I have set the threshold lower and it has never gone off.
 
You can choose how much to put in the Combo reservoirs as well - max is 315u. I'm inclined to think somewhere between 50 and 100u would be the minimum cos there has to be enough liquid in it to enable the expulsion of the bubbles - ruddy nightmare with 0.5ml plastic syringes.
 
LOL @trophywench - your insulin usage now is about the same as my daughter’s was when she was first diagnosed aged 6 - during puberty her usage has shot up so much that we now fill the pump to max 300u and only just about get 3 days out of it, if the 20u warning goes off at bedtime she’ll just about get through the night on basal only before needing to refill!

All the wastage annoys me a bit too, what’s left in the tube and probably in the bag also with the t-slim, all the packaging etc etc. But I dread to think what my daughter’s control would be like without all the bells and whistles of the pump. On the Combo we used to fill it full and do 6 days on a cartridge with a cannula only change half way between, which gradually reduced to 4 days on a cartridge and cannulas done every 2 days instead of every 3. On the t-slim you’re supposed to change the whole lot every time so I guess if her usage drops we won’t fill it full any more. @everydayupsanddowns we agree 100% that the reservoir is definitely the weak spot of the t-slim, I can only say I’m glad my daughter does the refills all by herself now!!
 
I hear what you people are saying about tubes and things. I can only say I'm glad I have an omnipod tubeless system.
I refused to take a pump before the tubeless became available even though my DSN thought it would be better for me it just seemed too much trouble to do.
And yes my pod tells me how much IOB I have, with a start up Insulin quantity displayed of 50+ not showing the full 200 I load in from the syringe. I also have my alarm set to 10 units and prefer to react to that if it sounds but so far it never has.
So I get 2 alarm types, one when the 3 day 72 hr time period passes and the other one at 10 unit low level warning.
From what has been discussed on here about going for longer I can see when the 72 hr alarm sounds I can safely ignore it if it is not convenient to do a change then. However if the low level sounds I need to react there and then as there are only 10 units left.
It looks like if I change every 72 hrs as I have been doing I am wasting 90 to 100 units of insulin every time, not good. .
I'll certainly be stretching the time period as has been suggested to use up more insulin.

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Every day is a learning opportunity.
 
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