Rookie mistake --> How embarrasing

I don’t know how long it has been like this, but I just looked down and noticed the part where the tubing attaches to my infusion site has been disconnected and caught in my clothes. There’s a 1st! Geez… no wonder my bg won’t budge!

Commence slow clap now :wink:

Sheepdogs

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If it’s any consolation, I got a “Pump not Primed” alert this afternoon when the cartridge cap somehow unscrewed from the pump. I hope the warning was issues shortly after the problem occurred, but I can’t be sure. Of course, it’s raining out today – I hope no water got into the pump!! I think it’s probably time for a new cap.

And, though I don’t recall having that exact problem, I have had high BG’s only to find that my infusion set came out of my entirely under my clothing and I hadn’t noticed.

When I reused the cartridge too many times I had “pump not primed” 4x in one day.
Gonna give this a couple of hours to fix itself and hopefully not redo the entire site.

Don’t be too quick to blame your inexperience. I had this happen to me a few weeks ago and I’ve been pumping for 30 years. I watched for an hour or so before I discovered the cause as my BG inexplicably climbing on my CGM display. Stuff happens. I disconnected for a shower and didn’t carefully listen for the click when reconnecting.

Do you use an Animas pump? I found making an extra effort to securely torque down the cartridge cap will discourage that error. I found that it doesn’t even have to be loose, just not fully torqued, to make that error happen. Then you have to do a full rewind … grrr!

I can remember that happening to me twice in the 17 years I have been pumping. Not something that I usually look for when sugars are climbing, but it happens.

I generally do make sure it’s quite tight – I think, though, this one may have been tightened a few too many times and is partially stripped. I got it working for now (by tightening, re-doing the ‘load cartridge’ step, re-priming). At least this time, it didn’t need a full rewind!

I think these things are just one of the drawbacks to pumping. Yesterday morning I woke up earlier than usual (thankfully!) at 5:00 am. I looked at my CGM and saw that I’d risen steadily from a flat 4 mmol/L (75 mg/dl) at 2:00 am to 17 mmol/L (300 mg/dl) when I woke up. I found that the tubing of my infusion set had somehow broken off from the hub, thus I’d been getting zero insulin for the past three to four hours, most likely, given the timing of going from a flatline to a 45-degree rise. I’ve been pumping for 10 years and this is the first time I’ve experienced that type of defect! I’m going to contact Animas about it, because it’s dangerous; I hate to think of the outcome if I’d slept in another few hours.

Yes, it is one of the drawbacks, but thankfully in my case at least, it’s been pretty rare. I think I have had the luer lock disconnect thing twice in 17 years.

I have also run out of insulin in the cartridge at least once (maybe twice), after getting the low reservoir warning (under 20U on my Accu-Chek pumps), and then forgetting about it because I was deeply engaged in another task. Plus, 20U will typically last 2/3 of the day.

I am typically thankful when these type of errors happen, because they are relatively easy to fix, as opposed to an unexplained high with all systems “Go!”, but seemingly no results!

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As long as we’re being confessional, I had a mystery high a week or so back that wouldn’t come down despite scary amounts of insulin. Sure sign of some kind of infusion set problem but I had inserted it the day before and it had been fine, and when I inspected it the site looked perfectly good–the sealing patch still tight all around, no tell-tale wetness indicating an insulin leak. Finally I had to give up and go home to try to deal with it. Yadda yadda, finally yanked the set off and the cannula was bent sideways except for a little bit at the very end. Somehow at some point I must have jerked it hard enough to pull the cannula almost all the way out without detaching the adhesive patch, and that little bit at the end must have been getting the insulin just far enough under the skin that it wasn’t making a wet spot even though it wasn’t doing any good either. Definitely one of the cleverer pump “Gotchas!” I’ve experienced.

Don’t worry, and don’t beat yourself up, we’ve all been there and can empathize. It’s just one of those things you have to accept as part of trying to stay on top of this disease 24/7. I wrote about my moment of “brilliance” here And the diabetic dimwit award goes to

Now, you see, this proves my point. Us MDIers aren’t subject to dumb silly mistakes. Except for the times I’ve injected bolus insulin instead of basal, or the times I’ve . . . . I think I’ll stop right now. :sunglasses:

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Now that you mention it, I can add that to my list of “achievements” too. I had two separate instances years ago where I had to ingest more glucose liquid and tablets than I care to admit in order to keep from killing myself due to my own carelessness…

Back when I first started pumping, you could not detach your pump and tubing for showers, etc. I always had my husband help me and be my cheerleader to insert the infusion set, because I needed the support (I’m still needle-phobic after 50 years). So one time, I got the infusion set in and then we just looked at each other - YOU FORGOT TO PRIME.

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I tried inserting an infusion set without priming it, to see what would happen. It backfilled with blood immediately. But I still got 3 days out of it. :slight_smile:

Heck, I wore my pump for 5 hours with no reservoir or tubing inserted. Yeah, I was giving boluses.

As my 14th girlfriend’s father used to say, that boy ain’t too damn smart sometimes. LOL

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Two others here that have been pumping 17 yrs had this. problem twice. Me too, pumping since Jan 2000 and having the tubing pull out of the infusion set two times.

When you’re pumping, the first thing to check is your infusion set when your glucose is high. Probably 6 or 7 times I went ahead and changed the entire infusion set out even though it checked out perfectly. Sugar dropped immediately, with no idea of exactly what was going wrong with the infusion set.

I’ve only had one non-infusion set spike in sugar that was inexplicable. I drank what was supposed to be a no sugar drink at some event, and it clearly was not. Other than that, it’s all been infusion sets.

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This has been an ‘all-infusion set weekend’ for me – I’m on my fourth set since Friday afternoon!

First one was a bent cannula - change is approx. 12 hours after insertion when my BG just would not come down (and so much waster insulin!).
Second was perfect - comfortable, working, quick – and pulled out by accident less than 24 hours after insertion.
Third one HURT from the moment I inserted it. “Worked” but not particularly effectively. Called Animas - they’re replacing the bent one and insisted I change the uncomfortable one out.

Fourth one… still in, seemingly working - but it’s only been an hour. Weekend isn’t over yet…

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I use both SkinTac and Mastisol to reduce the chance of the infusion set from lifting.