Our son is 5, diagnosed with T1D in Dec 2009 & has been on the Ping system since April. (I am a minimed user and LOVE my pump, but wish it was also water proof!)
We had our 4th break this weekend in 6 months… the first one was his first pump- after running saline for two weeks, we “went live” with insulin and in less than an hour, it had an error code and didn’t work.
Sol is a busy kid- he plays hard, runs a lot, and loves things like gymnastics class and playing on playgrounds. He does have the rubber case, so it’s protected the best we know how.
Has anyone had a similar experience? Are there more rugged pumps out there?
Thanks!
Our son is 8 and started on the Animas Ping pump last month. He does karate and hockey, he is very active (plays soccer at school every day), he has a brother almost 5 and they play mini sticks hockey, they jump around and on eachother and we have not had a problem. We have found the pump to be very durable. He wears underwear with a pocket on the inside and this is where his pump is all the time. It is also great to have the meter remote - we never need to pull out the pump until site change day! We did our first morning site change and it didn’t go very well so we will continue with the after school/before dinner site changes. Other than that, no complaints.
Congrats on starting the pump with Jackson- life is so much better with one. The control & convenience!
I’m glad to hear it’s going well so far- definitely let me know if that changes. I’m hoping we’re the exception, but I can’t imagine why it would keep happening.
On a side note, 5-year-olds don’t exactly exercise the best caution. We’ve had to talk to him about not dragging it down the hallway behind him when he’s in the process of getting dressed and has to come out and tell us something important in the middle of it! : )
My endocrinologist said (my son sees someone else- a pediatric endocrin.)~ Thank goodness for warranties and you have to be happy he’s not neurotic about diabetes yet. (Which is true- in my opinion- we do become rather neurotic in the good ways about keeping ourselves healthy!)
Thank you for sharing!
Carolee
My son Ethan has been on the ping since Aug 23rd (diagnosed at 3, now almost 11). In only 2 short months of pumping is last A1C was 7.3 from the usual 7.8-8.3. Not bad at all for only 2 months. We are still tweaking, experimenting and getting to “know” the Ping. We love the small increments for tweaking basal, love the remote bolusing and the fact I can check his IOB right from the pump status screen on the meter rather than climb up to his bunk and fiddle with the pump itself. He is on 2 Ice Hockey Teams and 1 Ball Hockey Team and plays Soccer at school everyday in Goal, takes it on the trampoline (well he used to but the trampoline lowers his BG too fast so we disconnect for that now) and we have had no trouble with the pump at all. This is all just with the included factory steel clip and no other protection, other than being behind some plastic “armour” when wearing his hockey pants.Anyone with links to some attractive/styled/current pump wear or protective wear/devices feel free to chime in please, we have seen many sites with “kiddy” clothes and accessories but a 10 year old is too “cool” for most everything we have seen you know? LOL. The OneTouch meters are another topic altogether, I have been diabetic since 2003 and can’t stand many of them especially their strips which are slow to absorb a sample, stick together badly (big fingers good luck when the vial is new and full) and sometimes error out with no sample at all.
My son is also 5, diagnosed when he was 3.5. We got our Ping about 16 months ago and haven’t had a problem with breakage (yet). He’s definitely a rough and tumble kid. The biggest problems we have are:
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Accidentally damaging or pulling-out the site… he likes to play with his tube even when we try to hide it.
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as someone else said in this thread - the test strips! It’s uncanny… it always seems like the middle of the night when I’m testing him that I end up with 1-3 bad test strips in a row. Literally! Plenty of blood, definitely have clean skin, etc… I’m pretty good at this by now… and it always seems to happen at that time (but sometimes during the day as well).
The pump itself has been near-flawless as long as I keep a fresh lithium battery in it… which means we change it about every month is all.
Glad to hear the Ping is holding up for your boys! My endocrinologist (and my son’s) both said they’ve never heard of so many problems. It was bad, to start with, that the first one broke the day we went “live” with insulin- aka stopped using saline and started using it for real.
I’m starting to wonder if some day we’ll find out we’re living in some sort of strange magnetic field or something- ha ha. (My minimed pump has no issues though, so not much to give this conspiracy theory weight)
We also have to use super adhesives to keep the infusion sites in- liquid Skin Tac and then an IV 3000 cover 24/7. (Thank goodness they’re so breathable)
I’m thankful that they’re so good about replacing them- the 2 day wait isn’t ideal, but it could be a lot worse!
Thank you for sharing your stories!
~Carolee
Hi Chris & Carolee, let me first say that we love the Ping itself, hate the meter and strips and we are absolutely satisfied with Animas customer care thus far, They have gone above and beyond for us. here is a letter I e-mailed when I mistakenly received an e-mail from Animas about a request for information that I had sent:
"Not sure where the request for info came from but my 10 year old son has a ping and has been using it since late August of this year. Not to rant on you but I thought I would mention this and will be forwarding this onto my rep and Lifescan/OneTouch staff as well. We love the pump but the Meter is disgustingly horrible to view even with my glasses on and is extremely glitchy, slow and downright inaccurate at times. Being a diabetic myself, I have always hated OneTouch Meters. I hate the little strips…they stick together horribly in the vial with static and are almost impossible for me to grab with one large finger when the vial is new and full. I have to tip over and hope they don’t spill when checking my sons BG at night. They are slow to absorb a blood sample and lately we have had many error messages even with a proper blood sample. My son and I have been doing this for 7 years so we are not new to checking BG’s. He has had over 16,000 finger pokes in the last 7 years and we have tried about 6 different brands of meters and their respective strips and as far as easy to handle strips, quick tests and NEVER and error unless a sample was too small, the Accuchek line especially the Aviva series wins hands down (aside from the Accucheck Nano which has a high resolution screen but is garbage otherwise. The larger strips for Aviva series meters, however are excellent. We chose the Ping simply because of the screen on the pump itself, the waterproof feature although we have never tried it and the fact you can wirelessly dose among other features, but the accompanying meter I had large reservations about and sure enough, we hate it, mostly the screen but lately have had a few widely varying results in BG tests at times and many errors. My son wasted 3 strips trying to check BG at school today, the most ever in one go. Some have said “error” just inserting them before a sample is even applied and we have found on about a dozen occasions so far the meter to be inaccurate by as much as 3.5-.5.5 mmol when compared immediately to 2 other meters we have on hand when we thought the BG reading on the OneTouch Ping meter was wrong. I can see 1mmol or less in varying tests and I realize up to 5% (I believe) is considered normal variance with many meters but this doesn’t exactly put ones mind at ease when dealing with a sensitive device that depends on the meter and needs accuracy with the numbers it uses to make it’s calculations. This kind of deviation in accuracy is nerve racking when it comes to nighttime monitoring and the fact the meter remote now comes with a high resolution screen, something it should have been paired with right away to match the pump’s screen only adds injury to insult in my opinion. Why they would blow their “horns” about the fact the meter can wirelessly perform most functions, obviously making it used more often than the pump itself and then give it a grayscale/monochrome type LCD with cheap green backlight comparable to a 1980’s digital watch is beyond me. I think I will try to warranty this meter if it keeps causing problems. Who would I have to dance with or marry to get one of the new Meters with colour screens? Had we known the colour screen was being introduced we definitely would have waited.
Thanks for your time and patience"
I received calls the next day from both lifescan and Animas and after a short while on the phone had a new meter arrive the next day and will be getting a new colour meter in the near future, as well as a replacement Box of strips that I complained about to the lifescan rep that called. We also often have had the meter simply tell us it couldn’t communicate with the pump on 3 or 4 occasions despite being only 2 feet from the pump…easily fixed but a pain nonetheless. To top this story off, I shopped for and bought 3 boxes of pump cartridges online at Diabetes Express, as I was told they were reasonably priced compared to drug stores and Animas themselves, Sure enough I also found the insets to be about $15 less a box than Animas. This got me agitated and I e-mailed my rep and asked why a 3rd party online site could sell Animas supplies for less than Animas. I argued their cost was approx $260 more per year over the equivalent of a nice vacation /cruise for us over a 10 year period and I got a call first of the week and they said they were going to give me a permanent discount on those two types of supplies to BEAT Diabetes Express and the discount would be setup in 15 minutes. DE wants $180.99 for Inset II boxes and $186.99 for Inset 30 boxes from Animas’ $195/box for either so I now get a price of $175 / box regardless of type ordered from Animas. I told them I preferred to order from them but still wanted our ADP funding to go further. NO I can claim less on my regular insurance or at the very least have extra ADP funds form mistakes or bad sites that cause us to change out sets early and yes, they have happened already in 2 short months of pumping. Needless to say we are very happy so far with Animas and the PING!!! Currently I am working on getting info from Customs on shipping/importing boxes of these same insets from the U.S. from an online medical retailer that is selling the same sets for an incredible $116 USD, I will keep this community updated. There sure looks to be good money in selling these insets of we are getting raked over the coals for $190/box here in Canada but I won’t be premature on whining about the difference until I know for sure and have a box in my hands to try
Wow… I think we’re really lucky… I’ve heard a few stories of parents who have to use IV-3000’s and other aggressive measures to keep the site in… it must be about skin type, sweating, etc…
With Ty we use a normal IV-Prep and just the adhesive of the Inset 30 itself keeps it in 95% of the time just fine. Taking a bath or going for a swim is always a problem - but that’s the only consistent problem.
We don’t use prep much at all but don’t get it that wet much either