I have been using the Pod for about 8 months now and absolutely love it. But having an engineering background and requiring 1 pod every 36 hours (After 31 years I have a hefty resistance) I am noticing an alarming failure rate (In my case). Now I am discounting occlusions and user user errors and focusing on communications, insertion and leakage issues. My question or survey as it were is: Out of 20 pods, how many failures have you had for the following:
Pod did not insert: 2/20
Pod would not communicate to prime: 3/20
Pod leaked: 1/20
Pod lost communications (within 24 hours) of insertion: 2/20
As you can see, I’ve had problems with 8 out of 20 pods (random pods from 4 different boxes) or a 40% failure rate. Prior to tracking this, I did notice a high rate of failure for the above reasons. Now Insulet is great at replacing defective pods but failure rates should not be this high. It has to be costing Insulet a fortune to cover these pods and I think I can speak for all of us in saying: I want Insulet to succeed and continue to innovate. I’ll compile these numbers and send them to Insulet. And yes, I do know they track this information but nothing lights a corrective fire more than the realization that customers are noticing these numbers.
Just cut and paste the above reasons with your numbers.
Thanks, Joe
Pod did not insert: 0/20
Pod would not communicate to prime: 1/20
Pod leaked: 0/20
Pod lost communications (within 24 hours) of insertion: 0/20
In the past 60 days I’ve had 2 other kinds of failures, one pod that simply never delivered insulin, but did not alarm and was not occluded. Another that alarmed during priming.
As you can see, my failure rates are much lower than yours. I do have problems with performance during the first day that I wear a new pod sometimes. Like many podders, I sometimes have to take extra bolus and/or basal when I first change, depending on the placement location. But I think that is more a physiological situation rather than an engineering or production one.
I’ve been podding for almost exactly 1 year and in that time, my failure numbers are still very low; probably a total of 6-8 total pods failing for any of the reasons listed above.
Pod did not insert: 0/17
Pod did not communicate to prime: 1/17
Pod leaked: 0/17
Pod lost communications (within 24 hours of insertion): 0/17
Pod failure notice: 1/17
Pod occlusions: 3/17
I also had an obvious failure of some sort but had no alarm—BG levels rising and continuing to rise after attempted corrections boluses. I haven’t used two (20ct) boxes yet.
I have been using the pod since last may, so that will be about 100 pods used so far and here is what I have seen:
Pod did not insert: 1/100
Pod would not communicate to prime: 0/100
Pod leaked: 0/100
Pod lost communications (within 24 hours) of insertion: 0/100
Pod failure notice (after 48 hours): 2/100
Site issues:
Occlusions: 0/100
Other (blood at site or poor absorption): 3/100
My pod issues have been very very few and far between.
So far I love this system.
Pod did not insert: 0/20
Pod would not communicate to prime: 0/20
Pod leaked: 0/20
Pod lost communications (within 24 hours) of insertion: 0/20
Pod failure notice (after 48 hours): 1/20
Site issues:
Occlusions: 0/20
Other (blood at site or poor absorption): 1/20
Last night when I changed my pod the site started bleeding but my BG levels had been good. I’m wondering if I didn’t hit a vein when removing the pod. Other than that I haven’t had too many issues with my pod.
This is very interesting data (yes, I’m a geek). It just occurred to me that I should dissect may failed pods to check the battery levels. I have made attempts to recycle pod batteries into other devices (such as my navigator transmitter) and have noticed a very wide range (from 0 to nearly 100 percent) of remaining charge. In theory, the battery drain rate should be fairly predictable for a pod. If any podders are so motivated, a battery charge level would be great data to have. Please, if you have not dissected pods before and are not absolutely sure of what you are doing, don’t attempt this. You really can hurt yourself trying to get them apart.
Thanks,
Joe
There’s a similar fact gathering on pods that I’ve replied to…perhaps the initiators of both could compile your data including Lot numbers to see if there is a correlation between pod failures and certain lot numbers. Mine problems have been with lot # L30070. That way, we’ll know whether it’s just a bad batch OR something in general.
Joe,
I think that 2 of the 4 batteries are actually a redundant set that are only used in the event of a failure of the other 2. I don’t remember where I heard/read that, but it could explain the variations you’re seeing.
Pod did not insert: 1/20
Pod would not communicate to prime: 0/20
Pod leaked: 3/20
Pod lost communications (within 24 hours) of insertion: 0/20
Failures haven’t been too bad for me. The one that did not insert was really strange. While it was priming it inserted into the plastic needle guard. (so I considered it non-inserting, because I couldn’t insert it in me!) I called them and they are sending a replacement for it and 2 of the leaking pods. They didn’t want the insertion one back though so I’m guessing they have seen the issue already.
I started on Haloween and normally get 48-50 hours out of a pod. I should have gone thru ~70 pods but calendar show me using 99 to date.
Pod did not insert: 3/99
Pod would not communicate to prime: 8/99
Pod leaked: 6/99
Pod lost communications (within 24 hours) of insertion: 7/99
Last week I had 7 of 10 from a box,ot # L30090, give a occulusion alarm with in four hours of insertion. They replaced the box and I sent the remaining three pods back to them. If you hadn’t asked for this I would not celebrated my 100th pod. Which I will put on shortly. I see my FedEx guy too much with replacement pods.
I know back in Nov. when I got a free lunch with my rep and couple of endos the rep told the endos that margin on the pods was a excellent investment.
I have noticed the same thing; some batteries provide great service in my navi, and others only last a couple of days at best. Like you, I would think that the pods should exhaust the batteries at a more consistent rate.
Just wanted to thank you for your input, I’m away in Pittsburgh this weekend and will tabulate the data and let you know what the numbers are when I return.
