I had my appointment on Friday afternoon to get my OmniPod all set up. I love, love, love the convenience of it so far. However, I’ve been running high pretty consistently ever since, ranging from 150-230. I’ve had to make several correction boluses as a result. I started eating low carb roughly two weeks ago and have been very happy with the results, but now I feel like I’m taking a huge step backwards. I called my CDE this morning to update her, hoping she would make a change to my basal rate, which is currently 0.4/hr. She told me that she does not want to make any changes right now because it has not been a full 3 days yet. She wants me to be patient today and see what my sugars are tonight before we make any adjustments. I’m crabby, my head hurts, and now I’m extremely frustrated. 
Is this normal to have your sugars out of whack when starting the pump? Please, someone tell me it gets better, lol.
It sounds like you are ready to start making use of the fact that with a pump you don’t have to have the basal rate set the same all day long. If you haven’t read it, and you want to have more say in your own adjustments, I highly recommend “Think Like a Pancreas.” It really helped us get my son’s basals fine-tuned on the pump. He has a period at night that’s .7/hour, but all afternoon it’s only .15/hour. And yes, it took a long time at the beginning to get it sorted out. Because my son is still growing we are constantly fine-tuning his, but I have heard that it can take a good couple of weeks to a month to feel like you have adjusted.
And YES, it gets better. My son could never go back to shots!
It does take a while to get your insulin dosing sorted out - not a pod thing but a pump thing. Glad you are enjoying the pod!!
I started the on the pod just over a month ago and experienced the same thing. My numbers were consistantly above 200 and I was super frustrated for the first week. I met with my Endo and he increased my basil rate and we programmed it so my basil rate was little higher at some times in the day. The past couple of weeks my numbers have been in range and consistant. It just takes a little time to get it sorted out but you will and you will love it!
It gets better… Does you CDE know a lot about Omnipod? If not… there should also be a local Omnipod Pump Instructor that can also be an important part of your team… Once we had a place whrere they let our Omnipod Instuctor help… things got a lot better… Make sure that the balance between basal and bolus and corrections aren’t way out of wack… My son started using too much bolus and corrections before the instructor noticed his basal wasn’t enough. But… yes… it will be gradual… and hope that you have a good team. Don’t move too fast… then you will never figure it out… do basal testing to see if the basals program is working… Are they doing basal tests where you fast? Ask about that if they aren’t. Good luck…and IT DOES GET BETTER!
I had similar frustrations. I knew I had the technology in my hand to tighten control and felt impatient at the need to get good data to make the right changes so I could be in control. I know for myself, I did need to go a few days of monitoring without making any changes because I still had some residual long acting insulin for the first 36 hours on the pump. So I guess if I were in your shoes, I would hold tight and befriend the correction factor for now 
However, I definitely change my own basal rates now. I’m pretty sure most endos and CDEs advise against this practice. If you decide not to follow your drs orders and choose to change your own rates, please be sure to start out very conservatively and carefully document the changes and test, test, test! I usually give a basal change at least 4 days to see if it truly works or needs further tweaking. Also, I don’t change multiple things at once (for example: diet, basal, correction factors and exercise). Otherwise I have a hard time telling what is actually working or not.
Please also note that the first couple weeks can be really hard! I don’t want to be debby-downer, but please be prepared for some bumps in the road. The good news is most of us here have had them and we made it through - so can you!
When I started on the pod it took almost 6-8 months to get my basal rate correct. I needed to wear a blood glusose monitor for 3 days to eventually get it all dialed in correctly.
We talked about doing something like that, but I don’t know that it would work for me. I work nights, so my sleeping pattern is all over the place. I’m looking forward to reading that book. It’s on my list!
What is a basal test? She mentioned that this morning, but didn’t give me much detail.
Being patient is not one of my strengths, lol. However, she did say that Lantus stays in your system for 3 days, like you mentioned, so she didn’t want to make changes too soon. She did mention basal testing, as did someone in the above post, and said she was going to e-mail me something. I haven’t gotten it yet, so I’m not sure what all it involves. Do you do that?
6-8 months??? Holy cow. I think I would give up before dealing with high sugars for that long!
yep. Basal testing is when your bg is in a happy place and you have no active insulin other than basal. You then monitor every hour-ish for the allotted period to see what your basal is doing. it sucks to not eat for long stretches of time, but the info is so worth it! It is truly the foundation for success with pumping.
I did it the other week. I ate breakfast around 7 or 8 am and made sure my blood sugar was right around 100. Then started around 11 am and went until 7 pm. I was terribly crabby, but the info was worth it!
Basal testing is outlined here This is only one way of doing it but it’s what has worked for us. It’s what he discusses in his book I mentioned earlier. The only thing is that the more varied your days are the harder it is to get it done right. So since you work shifts it might be hard - but you should be able to hopefully get pretty close.
She’s only having me do the night basal test right now. I’m not sure why?? Thank god tonights the last night, having to wake up at 3 and 6 is killing me. Hopefully she’ll make some adjustments for me tomorrow.
Tiffany do you have a cgm? I found lots of benefits from watching my trends with that. Before I got my cgm, I wore a “blind” one. Basically it was the sensor and transmitter. But instead of transmitting to a device that I saw it held the data for 3 days. Then I went in to my endo to download the info and discuss it. It was my first glimpse and the data was amazing! It was the first time that I saw what pizza actually does to me. haha! you may want to check with your dr. to see if something like that is an option to help augment your basal testing.
I really hate waking up in the middle of the night for testing! I can totally feel your pain. The good news is once you have solid data about your basal rates you can really trust the pump for that time of day.
Let us know how the adjustments go!
Hey Tiffany…It will get better. I do remember being higher just as you are now and I was not real happy about it either as I was used to being in a routine and not used to seeing my bg’s go up in a range that I was not used to both mentally and physically. I think what she’s wanting is to make sure you off your lantus or other basal insulin you were using before make adustments on your pump. When went thru training I believe she would make changes to basal after about week as I would see here each week in the office but she would always call and see how things were going and also I would fax my numbers to her as I kept a log with my carb intakes and insulin used. If I rember right after the first 2 visits we did make some changes over the phone after she would look at my logs. You sound a lot like me, I was impatient during this time also, but I would say that you’ll do fine as you have the right attitude and want to be in control of you bg’s which is good. Do you have the Co-pilot program? It’s a great way to print off and make reports for everything that you key into your pdm, it’ll keep track of your Carbs, bolus & basal rates and also your bg’s. I used this when I first started and I also use in now when I go in for my checkups. Works great and there are numerous reports that show you where your basal might not be working right or if you need a higher I/C ratio, I’ve got 4 different basal programs and 2 differnt I/C ratios for meals at different times of the day. Once you get this stuff figured out you be doing great, I would think that after a few more days you can really start to make the changes you will need to get your pump dialed in. If you need anything let me know–Best of Luck!! ~Schmutz
I haven’t downloaded either of the programs yet. Thanks for reminding me! I’ve been meaning to do that. Does your endo download readings from your monitor? If not, are your print outs used as a substitution or in addition to the info they pull?
Hey Tiffany…That’s the part I hate, my endo’s office can’t even read my meter, so I print off about 3 different reports to give to her when I go in for my checkup’s. I keep asking when they will get the Ominpod extension so they can download onto co-pilot but I think there’s a reluctance on there part, just feels they don’t want to as I was only the 2nd person in my endo’s office to use the OminPod! So I just keep printing the reports and guess that is why we all have to take control of our own destiny…for me the Podd’s working great and I couldn’t be happier…Hope your doing well also!! Happy Podding ~Schmutz
That’s what is frustrating to me. I do wear a CGM, so I can clearly see that it’s not going low in the middle of the night. I guess I just don’t understand the point, lol.