How many days do you wear an infusion set with steel cannula?

Hi, I'm just getting into reading some of the posts on pumping. I know I'm late but I just wanted to add some of my own experience. I'm using soft cannulas and the silhouette for 10-15yrs, I forget by this time. I use to ware them 5 days even. Now I have terrible scar tissue on my entire abdomen upper and lower so I can't plug in there at all. Virtually no absorption.I'm using the sides of my torso and running out of spots that aren't painful. I change every 2-3 days now and when my blood sugars get very high I take a shot as a bolus because it works faster than my cannula site. I also have to take Half the amount of insulin in a shot to get my BS back to normal. You question about Teflon cannula vs steel, I would think its about Teflon being a toxic material to the body. I don't use Teflon cooking pots or pans. Only stainless steel. Cooking with Teflon pans will kill your birds if you have any in the house so why would I want to use it. See what I mean. Also, if hi BS start and low or no absorption then a small infection has started. That's why the absorption problem. Scar tissue absorption problems happen right away at a site. Hope this helps.
Mikki

Thanks for your experiences, Mikki, very useful to know. Iā€™m still happy with and much prefer the steel sets and now I know another reason for it! Itā€™s funny - I choose to rarely cook using teflon-coated pans but hadnā€™t worried about having bits of teflon stuck inside me! I donā€™t believe I was having any obvious reaction to teflon cannulas but I def notice my sites look a lot better after steel set removal nowā€¦none of those red pimple things &/or small lumps (which I thought was just par for the course rather than any mild allergic reaction). The worst I had of those was with the angled teflon sets which puncture a larger area and left a noticeably larger red mark after removal.



People who have major absorption problems can have a diaport fitted, not something any of us wants to have but I found it reassuring that there is at least an option if you ever reach a stage where you have virtually no absorption from sites.



I wish Iā€™d read your sort of story when I first started pumping and leaving those teflons in for about 5-6 days to begin with (obsession with saving NHS money and reducing plastic/metal waste mostlyā€¦) for about a year or so. Iā€™m now definitely a 3 day max cannula-change gal.

Also laziness and inconvenience thing leaving sets in too long previouslyā€¦ :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hi Mikki, Ive been wearing the sure-t stainless needle for about 6 months & it is not user friendly at all. My husband has to do it cause I have osteoarthritis & can not reach my sides so good. I am awaiting samples of the new Orbit Micro infusion sets. They should be better & Medicare covers theese also, so we'll see. Betts

Thank you for sharing this, Mikki. Funny thing is I tried a teflon cannula yesterday for the first time in a year, and it just didnĀ“t work as well as my steel canulas use to. Had to take it out after just half a day and replace it with a steel one, took 1/2 hour to get my blood sugar start to get back to normal.

we started on teflon (comfort short) then moved to steel. The steel ones have a much lower impact on my son's flesh. The teflon left big lumps that looked almost bruised. The steel, when you pull it off, it's a tiny hole, but apart from that no problem. We normally leave in 3 1/2 days sometimes 4, haven't seen any problem.

I wonder if the manufacturers just say 2 or 1 day just to drum up sales.

Hello again! Thanks for your experience and thoughts on this! And Iā€™m wondering now if Betts ever tried the Orbit Micro & how you got on, or not?

I think I have posted the wrong picture,- the one with wings not without. It should look like this:

I also wonder how Betts is doing with the Orbit micro.

Hello Siri :slight_smile: theyā€™re not the wings I was referring to but thatā€™s ok, not sure if thatā€™s what you intended :slight_smile: :slight_smile: and Iā€™m rubbish with tech stuff/computers so I donā€™t think Iā€™ll be able to post a pic of the wings Iā€™m talking about on the Rapid D sets! Theyā€™re right adjacent to the luer coupling at the end of the tubing. They need to be passed (forced) thruā€™ the end cap in order to screw the luer lock together, then you have to push the end cap back until it sits flush on top of the cartridge before putting the cartridge into pump and screwing cap on, all with wings wedged inside! Phew that sounds complicated!! Like most practical things itā€™s an awful lot easier to demonstrateā€¦And I donā€™t recommend anyone else do this either. Funnily enough I had to phone Animas yesterday as my pump gave a scary No Delivery Alarm with a numerical ref, and during the conversation I ā€˜admittedā€™ using sets which donā€™t easily fit into the cartridge cap, but she didnā€™t seem concerned. The alarm was some sort of internal pump check (?) which happens randomly, just needed to rewind, load, prime a bit to get going again, but had absolutely nothing to do with anything else going on (like the occlusion Iā€™d had the night before). Iā€™ve gone over & over the way it all fits together and functions with these Rapid Ds and canā€™t see how it can possibly affect the pump function or structure, but you knowā€¦in the momentā€¦I panicked and thought Iā€™d killed my Vibe! I am so much happier today back on the Rapid Ds (apart from the wings) with their low profile :slight_smile:

They just mailed me 3 samples of the Orbit Micro which I am dying to try, consequently , just found out that they got my rx from Dr. but Orbit Micro will no longer be available. Bummers. Rep. said they changed to the Orbit 90 but can't count on getting any of them either. She advised, call Medtronics & stick with the sure-Ts.

ICU medical sold the Orbit business to Ypsomed in 2011, so anything called Orbit Micro is from old stock, and you won't be able to get the Orbit 90 either. You'd need to get them under the new name (MyLife Rotofine).

http://www.mylife-diabetescare.co.uk/mylife-roto-rotofine.html

Hi All,
I just found this conversation on TuDiabetes - very helpful, thanks! I had switched to the Sure-T infusion sets over a year ago, as I ended up in the hospital multiple times with kinked cannulas - and my Minimed pump seemed to never alarm that there was no insulin going in my body until I was over 400... I thought I had resolved the problem once after talking to Minimed - it was that the inserted for my Quik-set infusion sets was broken - took forever for me to find out what was causing all of the kinked sets. Then I didn't experience the problem again for a while - maybe because I had lost a lot of weight - but then it started again (after I had gained a significant amount of weight back), and it wasn't the inserter - so I finally switched to the steel Sure-T infusion sets. This resolved the problem - I was still changing every 3 days as I always had, and wasn't experientcing any problems. But, several months ago, I switched to the Animas One Touch Ping, and started getting high blood sugars after 2 days. Very high! AT least the Animas pump has a high sensitivity setting for occlusions, which I am using - and I get alarms if the insulin is not going when my blood sugar is still below 300! That's definitely an improvement - I really hope to avoid future hospital visits for D.K.A. (Truly, I work really hard to take care of my diabetes - but I have Type I D with Insulin Resistance, and also have a lot of food and other sensitivities - metals, etc. - so with all of these things it is really difficult to keep my blood sugar in check - not that it's easy for any of us!)

Anyway, I thought it was the Apidra insulin which I was trying out (which also says it needs to be changed every 2 days - and I found this to be true for me as well). But now, I am back on Humalog, still using the Animas One Touch Ping pump (waiting for my shipment of the vibe this month! :), and I'm still getting high blood sugars if I leave the infusion set in more than about 60 hours. So, I'm coming to the conclusion that the Animas Contact Detach (made by Uniglobe) needs to be changed every 2 days). Sigh.

I did not know that the steel infusion sets have nickel in them - I had clifford materials reacting testing report done, which tests for all metal sensitivites, in order to help people avoid dental products that contain materials that they are sensitive to, about a year ago. I just checked the report, and it says that I am sensitive to the nickel group! Also, Clifford provides a list of materials that "are not presumed safe for any internal bio-materials utilization based on upon reccomendations from various regulatory, professional, and toxicologial bodies. They have been tested to help assess total body burden responses due to potential cross-involvement with other groups of interest" (the groups refer to the metal groups).

Hmmm. I wonder if the Minimed Sure-T infusion sets contain less nickel than the Contact Detach Infusion sets? How did you find out the materials in the infusion sets? I've already thrown out the leaflet that came with my last box of Unomedical Contact Detach Infusion sets - cause I will check the pamphlet on the new box when it arrives.

How can I get unomedical to stop using Nickel materials in their infusion sets, or to make an alternative product for those of us sensitive to nickel?

Amanda

I donā€™t think scarring or allergies from steel are the issue. The steel alloy used for infusion needles is the same as for the temporary surgical pins used for temporarily immobilizing broken wrists. Those stay in for more than a month .

Iā€™m guessing that it is a ā€œlegacyā€ spec, developed back when needles were thicker gauge, longer and used for IV catheters, and it was easier to get the FDA to sign off using IV data than doing tests for cannulas.

This is an old topic from 2013-15. So yes, may be outdated.

ā€œSiri - how have you got on with them?ā€

@Ingrid_Glass
I stopped using them because I discovered I had lipoatrophy after getting regular massages (full body, not touching abdomen/stomach). Increased sirculation made me look something like this (pic from the web, not me):

I solved it by swithing to tubeless insulinpump (Omnipod) and started to use other parts of my body. I still change my pods every 48 hours even though they are intended to last 72 hours, but thatĀ“s because 72 hours never have worked for me and still donĀ“t. My tissue canĀ“t handle it.

Hope you find a solution to your problem. If you donĀ“t get an answer here, shoot an e-mail to the producer of the steel cannula you want to try.

The ā€œ24 to 48 hour use for steel infusion setsā€ is still official dogma from Medtronics and Tandem in 2022, because user experience is irrelevant to their original FDA approvals. A cynic might believe that maintaining higher turnover of less expensive to manufacture manual insertion infusion sets sold at the same price as auto-injector sets was a factor.

itā€™s a moot point . A third of my 3 day sets donā€™t last that long. My literal gut feeling is that if a steel infusion set site works for 2 days with no irritation or problems, then as long as the site is kept clean, inspected, and nit infected , a third day shouldnā€™t be a significant risk. imo, the steel needle cannulas cause less physical trauma to sites from insertion and less pulling because of their auxiliary support pads and moving the disconnect away from the site.

I just changed from my latest, after a few years, try with the steel needle with my new Tandem and i am fairly sure it was inserted for 4 days. After removal, my skin looked like it could have gone longer. On abdomen, my usual location for pump insertions. Trying the manual slant insertion now. Companies have to CYA with their warranties and recommendations. And, as some of you have noted, have sensitive tissues that canā€™t tolerate even as long as companies say. There is no ā€˜one size fits allā€™.

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