My daughter started pumping in late Sept., so all our experience has been in a cold New England winter. Last week we went to Florida to walk in the JDRF walk in Sarasota. My daughter wore one of her spandex waist bands and tucked the pump inside, next to her tummy. By the end of the walk we were all sweaty, and her numbers were on the rise. After 2 hours of rising numbers and corrections having no effect we changed her site and figured we had overheated her insulin. Throughout the week she had several more issues of spiking numbers and we're not sure if it was due to overheated insulin, vacation food, excitement, bad sites, or what. It resulted in a perfect storm of bad vacation blood sugars, and me changing her site almost every day.
So my question is - how cool does her pump need to remain? And how do we accomplish that at the beach or pool? When we took it off for her to swim we simply put it in the shade (it wasn't that hot out). Does it actually need to be stored in a cooler? Should she stop wearing the waist band (her favorite way to wear her pump) in the summer so it's not so close to her body heat? What if we're at the pool and she's not swimming? Do we periodically need to take it off her anyway and put it in a cooler?
Hi,
We live on FLorida and when we go to the beach I just put it under her t-shirt or in the shade if she is disconnected (never stored it in a cooler). I never had problems with her numbers afterwards. But it would be a good idea to call the pump company and ask.
I use waist bands on winter and pump packs or Animas skins (she’s on the Animas Ping pump) on summer so she does not sweat as much.
Regarding vacation food and the change in routing…it does raise my daughters numbers…
Good luck,
Eric wears his inside a pocket I sew onto his shirts so it’s never in direct contact with his skin. Spring hasn’t yet reached Maine and this is going to be our first summer with a pump, so it’s going to be interesting. I’m considering whether to try to sew some form of insulation material into the pump pocket, or whether that’s just being way to OCD about it.
this was a good read, i live in san clemente,ca perfect weather all year on the beach and it gets hot here. good thing to know now that we are on our road to pumping.
This will be my daughter’s first summer pumping; however, we get advice from a T1 man who goes to our church. He told me that when he’s outside for a copule hours in 95 degrees or above (every day here in Austin for at least 5 months of the year), his insulin often goes bad by the end of the 3 days in his pump. I asked if he just fills his cartridge for one day at a time or ??? He said that he just watches for it when he’s outside. Not a tremendously satisfactory answer.
Oh, and he always wears his on the outside of his waistband, like a phone.
Thanks for all the help! I think wearing it on the outside of her waistband may help, instead of keeping it up against her skin.
