We have been using Omnipod for a week now and yesterday we did our second pod change. The first two were on her arms and we saw similar absorbency in her arms as we did on MDI with shots in her arms. That seems to be the best place for her, absorbency wise.
For yesterday's pod change we put it on her hip and just like before, the absorbency is not quite as good as on her arms, just like with MDI (thighs being the worst place for her, for the first 1.5 hours it's like she hasn't gotten any insulin, THEN it finally kicks in). Since then we've been seeing slightly higher overall readings and they have been a little harder to bring down.
Does anyone experience this and have a separate basal rate for different infusion sites?
I have done a temp basal of +25% during the day to see if we can combat it, and if it stays more in range then I guess I will make a new basal to use with hip sites.
Just some answers for you. the arms and legs are mostly muscle. there is fat, but it is muscle. insulin into muscle is very slow absorbency. the arms and legs are also different because they are used all the time. which also will affect the absorbency. When insulin absorbs best into fat. (like your belly) it is not neccesarily fat, but it isn't muscle. so it absorbes and there is no real activity to change the way it absorbs. so in that area it your basal will stay pretty much the same. when I started both the nurse from minimed, and my doctor and friends that had the pump always say to use the stomach. they say about 1 inch from the belly button and over. in this area your basal rate will stay the same.
We don’t use her stomach because she is only 6 and she is scared to try it there. We have told her that when winter comes we’ll have to use her tummy because leggings and log sleeved shirts make using arms and legs less likely. For now it’s arms, legs and hips. Funny thing is that her arms work really well, probably because she is a kid and doesn’t have much upper strength. Her thighs are bad, probably because of the muscle, like you mentioned, because she plays soccer year round. Hip is somewhere in between.
Just to clarify, insulin injected directly into muscle will be absorbed very very quickly, much quicker than through fat, and may lower your BG too fast and too low. The reason why we inject insulin into fat is because it gives you a much more even and predictable absorbancy rate. Definitely, for me anyway, insulin injected in low fat areas directly over muscle gives me less consistent results.
All that being said, yeah, different basal rates for different sites. The best and most consistent sites for me are in my abdomen. I get fewer pod change highs there too. The most inconsistent are in my arms. Working out definitely has a bigger affect on sites on my arm than anyplace else and I have to pay close attention to what's going whenever I put a pod on my arms. Abdomen areas are as close to "set and forget" as wearing the pod can get.
