I may have misspoke earlier. My child’s BG will not suddenly shoot up to 300 with the pump simply turned off for two hours. There would still be significant amounts of IOB from previous bolus and basal working in the system for hours yet.
Once the insulin has run its course (or at some point when the effective IOB level has dropped fairly low) at that point with no additional insulin then the BG will absolutely go up quite rapidly.
We always have backup syringes and can easily extract the insulin from the pump which covers the vast majority of failure situations for us. We take no additional precautions in terms of pump supplies if we are within approx an hour drive from the house.
Two hours driving or more (but no overnight no aircraft) then we would bring a box we keep packed for moderate road trips which includes two set changes with additional misc supplies and would also grab a vial of insulin with us.
While I won’t skyrocket extremely high from an hour of suspended delivery, I definitely rise quite a bit. The only time I suspend for that long is if I have a low that just will not come up (for hours), I’ve mis-bolused by a lot and have way too much insulin on board, or if I’m exercising. Typically if it’s for exercise, I end up bolusing for part of the missed basal at some point after finishing to prevent a rapid rise. If I miss two or more hours of basal due to an infusion set issue (which are not uncommon for me, even with metal sets), then I definitely do get very high blood sugar and ketones regardless of insulin on board.
I will turn my pump back on to it’s regular basal setting before completing my hike as I know if I don’t, I’ll go higher than I like (by “like”,I mean above 140. i have little tolerance for going high so I keep a close watch on my bg’s). I also may do a small bolus especially if I’m about to go have lunch in a few minutes.
Critical failure? With diabetes, that could mean anything. But for me, having my pump stop working is more annoying than critical failure. While it has only happened once, I just used my regular insulin over the 24 hours it took to get a replacement. And if I ended up in the hospital, I would just have them call my endo and he would tell them, I have control. With both my pregnancies, my endo had it in the orders that I had control over my dosing and blood testing. I just needed to tell the nurses what I was doing and when. Critical failure I guess is a mindset. Most times when things go bad, it is just another annoying factor of having a chronic condition.
I agree with @Dave44 that critical failure can mean an unintended interruption of insulin.
If I was out and about running errands and my pump failed I would have to have some back up in place, insulin of some sort, or syringes for my pod, so I wouldn’t have to worry about running home to get re set up and cutting short what I was doing. (hours) It can also mean an accident and you end up in the hospital, (days) or a hurricane or earthquake etc and not having enough back up supplies (weeks).
If I didn’t carry “stuff” with me, the first case and probably the second are mostly annoyances to work around, the first going home, the second, my insulin dosing in the doctors hands, but the third could be life threatening.
My Zombie Apocalypse kit includes Girl Scout Cookies, mint chocolate chip ice cream, a good bottle of tequila and full-sugar margarita mix. If the end is near, I’m going out with a smile on my face
On second thought, if I become a member of the undead, am I still diabetic? I guess I should have my diabetes kit as well so I have all the contingencies covered.
On the “Walking Dead” television series they had one diabetic girl sneaking around in the woods with a cooler full of Insulin. It looked quite pathetic and my mind started racing. The character died when one of the Undead bit her. The cooler had become silly. The diabetic zombie did not want sugar; at that point she wanted to eat other people.
On the mental health side of things there are options.
For years, the MindFreedom Shield Campaign has been using PEOPLE POWER to protect individuals from unwanted psychiatric interventions. Shield alerts have the potential to activate a network of thousands to raise a non-violent ruckus with the goal of stopping forced psychiatric interventions.
Look at Glen K. of New York, whose forced electroshock was stopped just 48 hours after his MindFreedom Shield was activated. Look at Elizabeth Ellis of Minnesota, who wrote at the completion of the MindFreedom Shield campaign to free her, “If it hadn’t been for MindFreedom I would still be getting forced shock. I know the hospital recognized they had a power to reckon with in MindFreedom.
Wile the above may seem off topic try making a stink about your care in the hospital and see how quick psychiatry comes into the picture.
Someone should create a web-page where people could place important information themselves so we don’t have to rely on the governments DMV style electronic medical record of health convictions.
mymedicalrecords dot com or something like that.
Something we control.
You could then carry your name and password for doctors to access in case of emergency.
