My daughter just went to the endo and for the first time since diagnosis her A1C increased over the last three months. Her endo looked closely at her stomach and declared that a line on her stomach was “poofy” which is a highly technical term meaning it was clear that she need to be more aggressive about site rotation :). In her case, placement on the arm is not an option since her tennis strokes causes the cannula to dislodge and her legs aren’t a viable alternative since they are very lean.
That left us with the back side and after some initial reluctance she agreed to include the backside in her rotation . Her first overnight reading this morning after using the new site area was 130 so it seems good so far.
Without question, her records show a tendency to go higher with the placement of a new pod. We agreed with the endo that whenever she puts on a new pod she should set a temp basal of a 30% increase for 2 to 3 hours. Just one more in the constant need for adjustments to keep glucose reading under control.
Ah site rotation…the bane of my existence. My son also has places he will not use for sites. He gets skin irritations from the adhesive, so we have to really be aggressive about it.
I wanted to mention two things about the sites you have rule out - arms and legs. My son also has very lean legs, but he has very good success using his upper thighs as sites. We are careful to pinch up on insertion and it works very well. I understand not wanting to use her ‘racquet’ arm, but would she consider the other arm? My son swims and when his pod is on his arm, we use a terry wrist sweatband pulled up over the pod to keep it more secure. I have also just seen this site …http://www.bands4life.net/ , which has a product similar to a basketball sleeve but shorter so it only covers the pod. They are made of bathing suit material, so they should be stretchy and strong. We are going to try them out.
Thanks so much for the response. I will have to look at the upper thigh area once again later tonight. Unfortunately, due to the two handed backhand, we have had problems with placement not working on either arm. She generates significant rotation speed for both forehands and backhands. Dealing with blood sugar variations is difficult enough in a tennis match so I understand she does not want the distraction of losing a pod at Match Point.
I agree with daneenm, she should reconsider using the arms with something to hold the pods securely in place. I wrote about what I use during softball and racquetball: http://weblog.rizzoweb.com/2011/01/my-secret-weapon-for-holding-omnipod.html - using that, I’ve never had a pod come loose.
I also like those bands4life products - I might order one of them to try it out.
Those look really cool! My son will only wear his pods on his arms, and is an avid basketball player. Luckily shooting doesn’t seem to interfere - but I bet he would feel more confident with one of these on. (or maybe I would)
Thanks for the response. I do appreciate the link. We did try this product after seeing it mentioned on tudiabetes but the cannula still came out. All comments and suggestions gladly accepted.
The absorption in the new area seems to be working very well. Today, turned out to be a day of fighting lows (she hit 71 in the afternoon). This was the first day of fighting lows in quite some time.
I use backside, lower back, upper abdomen, lovehandles, thighs, and arms. I can’t use my lower stomach area anymore after overuse for the first 8 years I pumped, so I have had to learn the hard way about site rotation.
Hope you find a good solution.