I have read the manuals of all of my pumps, but I’ll admit I read the manual on most of the stuff I plug into my life. For sure one that is going to deliver insulin! I also read the label on any prescription that is dropped in my hands.
My first pump was a MM506, the manual was not nearly as big or wordy since the pump was quite limited in operation and technology. Back then, you did not get to put the pump on until you went to a three day stay in a diabetes clinic for pump training. Since then each new pump required that on-line training be done and a certificate of completion be issued before supplies could be ordered. That training indicated that the pumper understood the pump, the settings, and even the reasoning. I find the manual to be quite helpful, certainly if I run into an error, or alarm with it.
I may just be lucky but in my life with diabetes my docs and support system expect me to manage my diabetes. No one has ever made changes or told me what changes to make in my pump settings. I’ve never found a need to ask though…probably because I KNOW how to do it (thanks manual and training!), and why, and when to test before I make a change.
The manual is not designed to teach how to bolus for pizza for cryin’ out loud! It is also not designed to teach you how to manage your blood glucose. THOSE things need to be understood before you ever slap the thing on your body. I am learning that pumps are being distributed far and wide and folks like them because now they can eat pizza. That causes me worry, if folks don’t even understand the basics of insulin and how to use it for their food choices - how on earth will a pump help?
I strongly believe that anyone being prescribed a pump needs to understand how to use insulin in the first place. It’s great that you do “know only the very basics about my insulin pump and its many functions.”, but when I roll in to TuD every day and the first thing that pops up is another Daisy_Mae pizza thread it causes me to think that you don’t know the basics of insulin use and the effects and timing and how to determine when and how much and what to do it that didn’t work. The pump won’t tell you those things! You really need to know them to set the pump up, it looks to me like your settings could use some revision.
There are some excellent books that I will now recommend (in addition to the manual / and the MM training modules on line) - Pumping Insulin: Everything You Need to Succeed on an Insulin Pump 5th Edition by John Walsh, Think Like a Pancreas: A Practical Guide to Managing Diabetes with Insulin by Gary Scheiner, and the ageless Using Insulin: Everything You Need for Success with Insulin by John Walsh.
I have asked more than once and continue to wonder if you have done or know how to do the necessary testing to see if those things you do know “only the very basics about my insulin pump and its many functions.” - are even set up properly.
Seems like this topic pushes my buttons LOL! The veiled poke makes me chuckle!! The best info available in my opinion is in your own hands. I have learned how to bolus for pizza because I like pizza very much and it’s worth taking the time to figure out what works. I also know how to bolus for an apple, an egg, an egg sandwich, a bowl of strawberries, a BLT and beer at the pub, and if I goof then I know how to fix it! The pump training did not tell me how to do all that, I had to know it before I could use the pump at all. We were taught nutrition and cause and effect of our choices in addition to the bells and whistles of our pump. Times are sure changed…when I got my pump there was no DOC (that I knew of), the available resource was the manual / or CS if a pump problem, and some experience and willing to try something new 