How long

So I made the switch this morning and am officially wearing my first pod! I have been with minimed for 11 years and am wondering how long it will take to stop grabbing for my old pump!? I know it has only been a few hours, but I am just starting to realize how much I adjusted, moved, took note, and was just plain aware of my old pump. I even tried to find it to take some insulin already today after testing my bg with the omnipod. I am thankful that the rest of my family is not home today as I keep randomly giggling at myself...

Any tips, tricks, or otherwise helpful comments would also be appreciated! The adrenaline is starting to wear off, and I am realizing that I am totally out of my comfort zone... :)

I've been on the Pod for 7 days today and am still feeling for my pump when I go to the bathroom or in bed to make sure I don't tangle the tubing.

Funny story: Last night I heard a loud ringing in my ear. I always have ringing because of my meds, but this was only in my right ear and seemed to be worse than normal. I kept rubbing my ear to get it to stop and it wouldn't. About an hour later, I realized it was not my ear, it was my pod telling me I was out of insulin. I only figured it out when my PDM started ringing on the table. If I had it closer to me all the time, I wouldn't have been wondering for an hour.

Very nice! I know that I will probably have a hard time tonight when I search for my pump before I roll over in bed. I had the whole thing down to a science too! If the tubing needed to underneath me, I would push up and throw if across the bed. Worked like a charm... :)

Haven't had to deal with any of the beeping yet but I will probably miss the vibrate function. As a full-time student, professors aren't too keen on having devices go off in class...

Test often and trust it: I can't accurately gauge my carbs, but I can rapidly adjust with the Omnipod. Most of the time I don't try to second-guess what the PDM tells me for corrections, because I can re-correct (even if that means eating something) very easily after an hour, or a minute.

It took me a while to get the ratios "right"; the amount of insulin per gramme of carb and per mg/dl of blood glucose. They're probably not really the exact numbers, those tend to vary with the amount of excercise I get, but they're close enough that I can re-correct after an hour if things start to drift.

My target BG is 100 mg/dl. For a while I tried 80 mg/dl, but my wife objected to the need to eat carbs quite frequently. With the Omnipod and frequent testing it's easier to underestimate the insulin requirement then correct later.

John Bowler jbowler @ acm.org

I'm in Montana too. There are never a lot of Montanans who do anything because there just aren't a lot of us. I had to wait to get the Omnipod system because Insulet wouldn't sell me one until there was a trainer here. I've been on the system now since 2008. If you contact Carla Cox (CCox@TMIMONTANA.COM),the DE for Western Montana Clinic and send her an email where I can contact you, I might be of help to you. I'll email her to tell her that someone may contact her looking for a 67 year old Omnipod User that rides an orange creamsicle Trek, plays hockey, and cross country skis. I don't like to post my email address. It's not perfect but it's the best tool I've had. This site is quite useful in using an Omnipod.

I know Carla! I have been going to the Montana ADA camp for 14 years (I think) now. She is the nutritionist and meal planner for the camp and I have known her for a few years! I will be sure to email her and ask her to forward my information on to you... It is always so nice to hear that you are not alone in this remote state of ours! :)

I have to say that the last 24 hours have been pretty exhausting. Not only did I switch pumps, but we also decided to make some major adjustments to all of my basal rates, correction ratio, and carb ratio. I am checking my bg every couple hours and hoping that if I stick with the changes, then we can start to see what still needs to be tweaked. Really frustrating though to go to bed at 147, be 187 at 2am and wake up at 341 for no apparent reason...

I am hoping after a couple days, we can download all of the information and determine what needs to be changed to get me on track. Until then, I see some crankiness in my near future!

A few times in the last few months I've seen by blood sugar go up into the 300's when it shouldn't. When this happened it was just after a pod change, I think something can interfere with the basal delivery for a while after the pod change.

I ended up with a basal rate such that I get half my insulin in the basal, half in the boluses. I also did a couple of fasting tests, to make sure that the basal was such that my blood sugar didn't drift, but that's pretty difficult to get right. (The rate varies after a day of excercise, or a day of no excercise.)

I got to the rates I've got now by downloading the data and examining what worked; particularly the relative amount of corrections versus boluses. It's pretty straightforward but it does need accurate carb counting to get it right. While I was doing this I tested every time I ate and entered carbs into the PDM accurately. These days I don't always record carbs when I correct upwards.

John Bowler jbowler @ acm.org

Well I hope a pod doesnt go off on you in class because that ringing is loud and annoying

Just dropping in to say hellooo to all the other new podders here! :) I started my first pod exactly 2 weeks ago tomorrow and I'm loving everything about it. It's been a really easy adjustment from me from MDI and I love not having to do the math myself anymore. I wish I'd done this a long time ago!

I go back to my CDE tomorrow for a little follow-up training on using extended boluses and going over my data but I feel like the learning curve was much less than what I thought it would be.

To me it usually is. Its good to hear that you are adjusting to it and actually enjoying it. There are tons of negative things people have to say about it, but I feel like all pumps have their drawbacks; you just have to pick the one that will fit you best. Because my tubed pump had several occlusions. With my pod, when I get an error I pull the insulin back out so little to none is wasted. But with the tubed pumps, I couldn't really pull the insulin out of the tube even though its not a lot in them either. But, hope everything continues to go well for you.