I have been injecting saline and taking my normal shots for the last 10 days. The first pod lasted the three days. The next two lasted about 1 1/2 days before the solid beep came on, pod failure. I’m hoping once I start putting insulin in them that I have better luck. But as far as taking them off I don’t have a problem. Stings a little bit getting one end off then after that its like pulling a bandaid.
Has Insulet re-imbursed people for failed pods lately? I heard they used to but not so much anymore? And what about insulin that you lose?
Im still pretty excited. I go on a 6 day fishing trip starting tomorrow.
If you have a “Pod Failure” then yes, Insulet will reimburse you. (they’ll take you through a set of questions first but the pod failures are pod malfunctions so they’ll send out an extra pod with your next order or at the beginning of the next month if you don’t get your pods directly through them.) If you have an “Occlusion” error then Insulet claims the pod is working as designed and it’s not their fault so they won’t replace it. If you get your pods straight from Insulet you should call in all errors anyway so they have a record in case you need a shipment early because of failures. The insulin is pretty much a lost cause. A number of us stick the fill syringe back into the old pod and draw the insulin out and put it in a new pod but this is not recommended as the insulin only lasts a few days at body temperature. (I’ve never had my insulin go bad on me but my pods only last 2.5 days or so.) I follow the rule that if it’s been on less than 24 hours I’ll try to get the insulin back out, otherwise I’ll toss it. Good luck on the Omnipod and just make sure you bring plenty of extra supplies (pods, insulin, skin-prep or alcohol swabs or whatever, and test strips / lancets) on your trip in case anything doesn’t work!
Nick,
Congrats on the OmniPod. It has been a real life changer for me and I wish you all the best.
I also try to suck out the insulin if it’s been on less than 24 hours. However, I then put it into a nearly empty vial and add extra insulin to that “used/empty” vial to get up to the level that I think I’ll need for the next pod. I can never seem to get all the insulin out and usually only get out about half. The reason for the separate vial is that I do not want to contaminate a new and pristine vial of very expensive insulin with insulin that’s already been in my OmniPod and subjected to plastic.
Depending on the type of fishing you are doing (marlin vs sitting on a boat calmly vs fly fishing in a class 4 river with chest waders on) I would recommend you pack 3 times what you think you are going to need and pack it in waterproof and cooling containers. I would also take enough along to go back to MDI if everything else fails (including some long acting insulin). Again, since it’s your first trip with the Pod, I’d err on the side of caution. My first week on the pod, I went through 4 pods, the second week, 3 pods. And I was just around the house and hitting the pod on all my door jambs. YES, I AM LAME!!!
Congrats and welcome to the Omni Pod family. You’ll love the freedom but keep in mind that there will be a bit of an adjustment period and it will get frustrating at times, just don’t give up. Come back here for suggestions and support. One thing that I can suggest, from my own experience, is to be sure to carry a backup of all your PDM and basal rate settings. This can either be in hardcopy form or in a document stored on your laptop. I actually use the “Notepad” on my Yahoo account to store this info. That way I can recall it from any computer in the world, if needed. I bring this up only because after 3 months on the pod, my PDM reset itself one night while I was at work. It disabled the pod and totally wiped out all of the programming in the PDM. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any of the information needed to get my system going again so I called my wife and had her bring me the programming sheets that my educator and I filled out when I started the pod. (She wasn’t too happy about having to drive 120 miles round-trip after dark.) Anyway, just another lesson learned. It hasn’t happened since and I think now, after 8 months, I’m prepared for just about any pod challenge or catastrophe.
As far as pod failures, I’ve only had 4 fail and Insulet replaced them. Just be sure to contact Customer Service anytime you have an issue. They are extremely helpful.
Have a great trip and take care. Holler back if you need anything.
Six day fishing trip and no pod failures. I was in upper (kinda) Michigan on Lake Huron at a camping site for a family reunion. I went wading every day. Didn’t catch very many fish - just a 15 inch small mouth. They have to be 14 inch to keep so I threw some back.
(I don’t fish often) Anyways my pods did GREATTTT! No failures…nothing. BG levels great and you know family reunion food isn’t always the best. I even got lost on Lake Huron because of the fog/mist that rolled in at 10:00 am. Got a little scared but I had a couple granola bars in my waders. After the first fish I could not find my way back. It was errrrrrrrie. Like the Bermuda triangle. And all I could think about was I didn’t have enough food with. Then I fell in because the rocks are really slippery. I had a very mild panic attack because you really don’t know which way you are going when that happens and being in one of the great lakes it is VERY cold water to have in the waders. You can’t just walk anywhere without fear of getting stuck. Anyways found my way back to shore…All I could think is that I really could not do any of this stuff without my pod system I have now.
Pod 1 – Lake Huron 0
Try Skintac or something like it to put pods on and Unisolve or even baby oil I hear works to help remove them… makes things much easier. And not sure why… .but it seems… the longer you pod …the less fails there are. Make sure to put the insulin in the pods SLOWLY… less bubbles…
And good luck… even w/glitches… my son really loves the pods compared to MDI…and he has been MDI…PODS…MDI and now back to pods. ( Pod vacation was madatory by and endo we later switched because of that)
I print the settings sheet off each time we make a change and then circle the change and then write why it was made…the reasoning behind it… and then I keep it in a binder. I also print the log book pages after about a week of reports… and keep them in the binder. once a month… I print off the sheet that shows his stats. and the bar graph one and include that in the binder… Keepin this hard copy binder… also has been helpful… because as we make changes… the Copilot only stores the current settings…doesn’t show you the old ones… and my son’s pump instructor likes to see what we have tried and what changes have worked or not worked… and why we made them.
