My son’s Ping is coming today, and we go in for training & go live on Tuesday. I asked him last night when I was giving him his Lantus if he was looking forward to being on the pump and not hearing my iphone alarm play our “Lantus song” at 9:00 every night. His response was that he is very scared. When I asked why, he said “because it’s new and different”. I reminded him how easily he learned to do shots & test his blood and all of that and that he’ll get comfortable with his pump quickly, too. I reminded him that he’s not in this alone and that we’ll be learning along with him and helping eachother figure it all out. I also reminded him if he doesn’t end up liking it (we agreed early on that he’d give it 6 months before making a judgment), we could always go back to shots.
Truth be told, though, I’m a little nervous about the change, too.
Any words of wisdom or advice for an almost 13 year old who is feeling pretty anxious about going from the comfortable world of MDI to the unknown of the pump? Thanks!
Is there any way he can meet others who are also on a pump, so he can see the “cool factor” of having one? For me, I was less scared about going on the pump after I met people who had one and saw that it really wasn’t that big of a deal. And I was even less scared once I learned how to actually USE the pump and understood all its features. Has he had the opportunity to play with the pump using saline? Is there something specific that he’s scared of? Some people are scared of the infusion sets, while others are scared of the idea of having insulin constantly pumped into them. It’s important to figure out what “difference” he’s scared of exactly.
The nice thing about the pump (for me, anyway) is that because you’re putting insulin into your body at a much slower rate, you have more time to react if you start going low or high. I’ve found that my lows and highs are less dramatic while on the pump, mainly because I have time to react.
Also, there are a ton of videos on YouTube of people (including kids and teens) operating their pumps and putting in infusion sets. Just go to YouTube and put in “insulin pump” into the search and they will come up.
The pump can be scary. There’s a learning curve involved and he will have to be patient in the beginning while all the kinks get worked out. However, he will probably discover that the ability to have more flexibility in what and when he eats makes the pump totally worth it.
Thanks for chiming in. He does know people with the pump, so he’s seen it and talked with them about it. He also knows the benefits of pumping, particularly regarding when he can eat and being able to be a little more discreet about bolusing, and he’s excited about those benefits.
In general, he’s kind of like me, in that any change causes some anxiety. We like being comfortable, competent, and confident, and new things take away all of that for a while. It’s not that we let the anxiety stop us from doing anything, there are just always nerves involved in change.
All of us got to insert an infusion set with one of the reps, so his fear about that is gone. The sound was much worse than the feel of it. We got to push some buttons on the pump, but not that much. We’ll play with the pump over the weekend, but I’m not sure how much you can really do if it’s not attached or full of something. We don’t have saline laying around, but do you think we could fill it with humalog and play around with it while it’s not attached to him? I know it would waste insulin, but we have a pen I need to throw out anyway.
Type 1 since age 11 here, pumped from age 17-23, and then started pumping again at age 29! And I laughed so hard when you said you had a “Lantus song” on your cell phone, because I did too! And I was SO sick of it by the time I started pumping again! Ha!
Any way, to answer your question, I started pumping when I was 17 (so a little bit older than your son) but I took right to it, because I was a teenager and into all sorts of gadgety things. And that was over 10 years ago. I think today’s kids do even better because they grow up navigating the world of cell phones and iPods and all the other electronic things out there. Compared to some cell phones and iPods, the user interface on pumps is really simple, so he’ll have no problem with that.
I think it will take some adjusting with the physical aspects of having a pump. For example, where to put it while sleeping, where to wear it on his clothes, etc. I liked it, especially when I was a teenager, because it was so much more discrete when it was time to take a bolus in public or around friends or something, so I bet he’ll like that too. I will warn you that I had a rough couple of months when I first started, trying to figure out the right basal rates, and carb ratios, etc. So, please don’t expect magic perfect blood sugars over night on a pump. But, it is SO worth it once you figure all that stuff out, and hopefully it won’t take you guys as long as I did to figure all those things out.
Oh, and also one more thing that I LOVED about pumping (especially when I was a teenager) was that I could finally SLEEP IN pretty much as long as I wanted to on a pump. Before I started pumping I was taking a Regular/NPH combo, and that made for a much more regimented eating schedule than i had to have when I started pumping.
OK, that was a long reply, but I hope your son will enjoy it! Good luck!
I can understand being nervous but my experiences were 1) smooth and 2) I noticed immediate improvement in how I felt. Some of that may have been transitioning from R/N to a pump (in 2008) but my doc was able to get very close to the correct rates right out ot the gate and a few small adjustments made everything fall into place in like a week.
I skipped the martial arts class the day after I had it plugged in (my first absence after a year of hard training I think…) and, when I showed up with it the next day, my instructor @ the time (5th dan, punched through 2x concrete blocks using pens instead of proper wooden spacers. He’s a cop now so I would put more stock in his assessment as a non-PWD than a lot of people…used to scare the hell out of me though…) looked at me and said “you look a lot better”. All of the kids were certain I would be “in big trouble” for having a pager but they got used to it pretty quickly too, although perhaps they didn’t like it as one of my friends said later “you turned into a hard-■■■” which suprised me a lot as I always felt like I was struggling a lot.
I recall you mentioning that your son is pretty active and a pump will help him a lot with keeping his BG more in line. I think this will likely help his performance a lot too. In some ways, it’s useful to know about food intake, BG, etc. I suspect after a hard game in Texas heat, his teammates are probably running a bit hypo too?
Since he is 13 he will have it figured out long before you do:) I took one day off work to get a feel how it worked, and then I was back at it with no issues. They will probably run him a little high at first, and then get him dialed in over a period of time.
Also a lot of times the pump is sold as a “cure all” for all thing diabetes related. It will help you gain tighter control, but It still requires a lot of work and attention to detail to make sure your BS’s are not spiking around.
You can just fill a resevoir with water and do it that way. If it’s not attached to him, it won’t hurt anything. The resevoir gets thrown away, so putting water in there and letting the water just come out of the tube after you’ve “bolused” would be a good way for him to actually see how it works. The first time I went on the pump I did that and it really took away some of the fear for me.
I’d recommend the Star Wars Imperial March and maybe the Portal Theme for reminders. You should be able to load em through EzManager. That may help get him a little more comfortable.
The pump arrived a couple of hours ago, and we’ve already filled a cartridge with water and inserted an infusion set it into a Nerf football that we labeled “practice butt” and that he named Ramon. Whenever he eats and tests between now and his training on Tuesday evening, he’s going to give a bolus to his “practice butt” and get used to pushing all the buttons. I was surprised that he remembered how to rewind the pump, load a cartridge, prime & insert an infusion set from our meetings with the pump reps over a month ago. I didn’t remember all that stuff.
He’s getting excited and was bummed to hear that he had to wait until His training to get going for real.
Thanks for your tips, suggestions and encouragement. He’s going to be fine.
wow , right in the middle of all of this myself right now with my 13 year old daughter. We went live with insulin in the omnipod on tuesday. I have to admit its a little stressful right now as we are only 4 days in, but I knew that the first week or so would be that way.
Her blood sugars were high first 2 days and we tested like every 2 hours. We made adjustments to basal rate and lowered her carb ratio’s and she is back in range again, But I must admit I am obsessed with it all.
I check the thing all the time to make sure its working, and its all I have been talking about for 4 days LOL!
We are getting up again in the middle to the night twice to record BG’s as we are faxing logs every day to the CDE for the first 2 weeks, so losing a little sleep
That all being said she loves it and is very calm about the whole thing, and is a whizz working the pump (just me who is nuts, even husband is matter of fact.)
It was helpful before we started ,for me anyway, to read the manual that came with the pump so I was familar with things.
My daughter loves the fact that she doesnt have to give shots anymore or worry about Lantus every night. (ME TOO!)
Good luck , you and your family will be fine, and your son will love the freedom it gives him especially when he goes to eat something and doesnt have to get a “shot ready”. Let us know how you all make out on tuesday.
