Bad insulin or is Omnipod the worst device ever?

[Marie20]

I have never used the food library or the presets etc. It just adds on steps. And if you have anything in the presets it adds another step to just regular bolusing, and that was just annoying lol.

[Terry4]

@mohe0001

How long was your trial (measured in # of Pods)?

I understand where you’re going with this. Your body does learn over time when doing any repetitive task. I’ve seen it referred to as muscle memory and agree that it becomes an advantage.

This definitely did not apply to my Omnipod trial. Even though I ran onto many challenges adapting to the Omnipod, I persisted for five months. That would make the number of pods that I inserted during that time about 50. I wanted the Omnipod to work for me but poor performance forced me to give up.

Here’s my tale of woe from back in 2012, more precisely, Thanksgiving morning, 2012.

Omnipod made diabetes a larger part of my life

Insulet's goal to "make diabetes a smaller part of your life" is an admirable value. Yesterday I decided, after giving the Omnipod a five month trial, that Omnipod was making diabetes a larger part of my life! I have been having trouble with pod-change highs and this community has given me lots of advice on how to deal with them. Thank you for that. I think I found an effective workaround using a 7 unit syringe bolus at the time of the pod change. That seemed like a drastic amount compared to ma…

[mohe0001]

I see, “pod deactivations and occlusions.”

I feel like we are seeing a lot of posts about this stuff and I just don’t know what to tell people. Do you think this was tissue related? I, personally, see this occasionally with both Mt and Omnipod. I don’t know which occurred with more frequency because its pretty rare for me with both devices.

But, Omnipod sends such a reliable, audible alarm (for me), that its better for me when it does occur. Whereas, with MT, it would become a really tricky thing to troubleshoot and uncover. Maybe they have improved that. Its been a long time since I was on MT and this year they DID try to address infusion set problems at the Diabetes Technology Society meeting (which is commendable).

[Ali4]

I came off my pump after 15 years. It took months before I stopped looking for my site, tubes and pump. I never realized how every action was first filtered through where my pump was. Seatbelt, clothing… going on Trebisa has been amazing. But it was an adjustment for sure.

[typ1]

I used to get occlusion errors years ago. It would occur if I tried to bolus more than 8 or more units at a time. Dexcom rep said to split the dose. I rarely do over 7 units at a time now.

[SherryAnn]

Everyone’s body is different, as is everyone’s reaction to insulin and everyone’s control of their diabetes. My philosophy is that everyone must find what works the best for him or her. Personally, I have been on the OmniPod since 2009, and I love it. I don’t have to disconnect anything when I want to shower or swim, so I always have a continuous flow of insulin. I never have to worry about tubes or clothing because I don’t have tubes or need to have a machine hanging off of a belt or top of pants connected to a tube. As a woman, that allows me to wear dresses when I want. You can check through the window of the Pod to see if the cannula is inserted when you change the Pod, so I always know if the cannula is inserted properly. If it is in a place where I cannot see it, my husband checks it for me. The Pod works for me. I wish that it works for everyone, but apparently that is not true. What I am saying here is this: each person must try what appeals to him/her, and each person has to see if that particular pump works for his/ her body. Please don’t say that Pump X is terrible or Pump Y is the best ever. The most anyone can say is that Pump X or Pump Y did or did not personally work for him/her.