We have changed everything and there were no air bubbles in the reservoir now a day later there are air bubbles in the line. Why and how do we get rid of them? Do we need to replace everything again?
You will have to be the judge, I would just purge the tubing if it had some big air pockets.
It's not uncommon for there to be a few champagne bubbles show up in the reservoir. When you fill
the reservoir all of the components need to be the same temp...I do not refrigerate my open bottle
of insulin and if I need a new bottle it comes out of the fridge the night before...I store my next res in
the same place as my open bottle of insulin. Remember the pump is a electrical device and the temp
inside the case can and will be higher than room temp (Ambient). Also it takes about 3" of tubing to
hold 1u of insulin so a small bubble is not a disaster for the average T1D. After some time you will
figure out what works best for you...there is some art involved with pumping insulin.
This is very new to us as this was the first time we changed the site ourselves. When you say purge, what exactly do you mean we have to do????
A little tip..
Keep the pump upside down when worn and you will never get air bubbles again, as any air that becomes apparent sits at the bottom of the catridge..
I have a case that I wear round my neck, the pump is always upside down and I have never had any air bubble issues since I have been doing this.
By purge you can just prime the infusion set, e.g unattach it your daughter and push insulin through until the air bubble are gone then re attach.
When you say push the insulin through until the air bubbles are gone do you mean physically work the bubbles out of it??
If you have air in the tubing you can just do the prime sequence again just
like when your insert a new res. Make sure the pump is not attached to anyone,
remove the res and tap it until air is at the top, re attach the tubing and
purge the air out just like it was a new one...re attach to infusion site.
thank you!!!
When I was on a tubed pump, I always always always had this problem. I did every single thing that was supposed to prevent bubbles, and when I primed, there were never any bubbles in my reservoir. However, I would end up with every set having 1-2 inch long bubbles. That is one of my main reasons for switch to the Omnipod. Now, if there are any bubbles, they aren't big enough to cause me to lose basal for multiple hours or to lose an entire bolus for food. You can try all of the suggestions folks here will give you, but it could just be that you will have bubbles. You should make sure that your child learns to check for bubbles every hour or so and before bolusing to avoid not getting enough insulin. Just prime out any bubbles that you do find.
I agree w/JohnG and using insulin that is at room temp. I don't have a problem w/pump clipped to my waistband or in a pocket. Your daughter is using the MiniMed pump right?
Here is my routine for reservoir/site change: 1) Insulin room temp. I keep mine in fridge, always have, but take out earlier in day to allow to get to room temp. 2)When filling res, draw insulin out slowly, fill past what you are going to keep in res, tap res to get bubbles to top, push slowly extra insulin back into bottle. 3) when you place res in pump w/tubing attached, keep the tubing/pump pointed up toward the ceiling, hold it that way when priming. Prime as instructed. 4) insert, finish prime, and you should be set.
Most of the time this is pretty fool proof for me, I get bubbles only when I am down to the last 10 units in the res and ready for site change. Sometimes the tubing looks to have bubbles but it is secondry to tubing being "pinched" - not a problem, just makes you freak thinking bubbles galore in tubing.