Pumps have both basal & bolus insulin. An advantage of pumps is that basal rates can be adjusted or turned off for exercising, or if someone wants to skip a meal. Most people love their pumps, so mine is a minority opinion. I wonder, though, if the improved numbers through pumping is really due to people counting carbs more carefully (or for the first time) & having more exact insulin:carb ratios. People learn a lot more about this through pump training. Except for adjusting basal, the other things people do with pumps can be done with injections, from what I can see. I have one friend on a pump & he’s fiddling with it constantly. I don’t see this as particularly liberating. He’s a techno freak & loves anything like this. He’s been a diabetic for 33 years. Before pumping his wife took him to the hospital for lows, but he always just guessed at his doses.
Scott Strumello posted a good article (that you can search) that discussed how pumping didn’t improve A1cs for people who had good control prior to pumping. Man, these things are expensive & doctors get perks for pushing them. Add to that the extra expense for supplies & the many possibilities for mechanical & operator failure, bad injection sites–I’m just not interested. I don’t take large doses of insulin because I’m a small person & restrict carbs. I’m a freak in wanting to keep things simple & it doesn’t get simpler than injections.
Agree. If I was Type 2, I’d rather be on low insulin doses than meds.
I took myself off aspirin, too! Helpful if you’ve had a heart attack, but not as any kind of prevention. Wish I could remember where I read this, but one study said that aspirin can actually be harmful to the heart if you take it without a history of cardiac issues.
Good for you! You have to be one in charge.
Let me know what the endo says about basal. In case this is helpful, Levemir tends to work better for a lot of people. I’ve been on Lantus & Levemir. Levemir also lasts about 5-6 weeks compared to Lantus’ 28 days.