To pump or not to pump

[Redkite]

P.S. Re moving hospital, we had to do this anyway as the care from our local team was so poor. We now travel into London, about 1hr 15 mins compared to 20 mins to the local one. But well worth it! Depending on your local set-up, some hospitals will keep your routine diabetes care local, and you would just attend a regional pump specialist hospital for the pump training and appointments. I believe this is the case with the Leeds paed service for example. In other areas, you'd have to have all your care from the team at the pump centre.

 

[Tony R]

Most Important Reason For Going On A Pump In Your Teens

One thing and perhaps the most important reason for your son going on the pump at his age is because there's a direct correlation between someones average glucose levels HbA1c and the risk of complications in later life like heart disease etc. The key years are the teens when you're growing (apparently until your teens it doesn't have such a great impact). For this reason it's important that he gets his HbA1c as low as possible as he enters puberty and the pump really enables you to do this.

It's important to realise the pump is a powerful tool which enables you to really manage your diabetes but to get the most out of it as with all tools you really have to be prepared to learn how to use it. The pump won't do it by itself, you have to be prepared to put the effort in.

Just to give you an idea, my son's HbA1c was always around 9, within 6 months it had gone down to 7,2 and now we're aiming for the 6's.

 

[Redkite]

One thing and perhaps the most important reason for your son going on the pump at his age is because there's a direct correlation between someones average glucose levels HbA1c and the risk of complications in later life like heart disease etc. The key years are the teens when you're growing (apparently until your teens it doesn't have such a great impact). For this reason it's important that he gets his HbA1c as low as possible as he enters puberty and the pump really enables you to do this.

It's important to realise the pump is a powerful tool which enables you to really manage your diabetes but to get the most out of it as with all tools you really have to be prepared to learn how to use it. The pump won't do it by itself, you have to be prepared to put the effort in.

Just to give you an idea, my son's HbA1c was always around 9, within 6 months it had gone down to 7,2 and now we're aiming for the 6's.

I agree with all the positives you've said about the pump. We too saw a marked decrease in his a1c, which couldn't have been achieved on MDI. 🙂

But, it's NOT true to say that poor diabetes control has less of an impact before the teenage years. Sadly there are still dinosaur consultants out there who say such things, and who believe that children under 12 do not need screening for retinopathy etc. The truth is that damage occurs in susceptible individuals at anything higher than normal glycaemia, and the longer one has had diabetes the more chance there is. My son's highest a1c was 8.7 and he has been in the high 6's/low 7's ever since he went on the pump aged 7, yet he has early kidney damage, and protein leaking in his urine. If we had been slack and sat on our laurels in the belief that damage can't occur until the teenage years, he would be much worse off.