I just had this happen to me. The alarm on the POD went off, within moments I started to feel low. I am at work so I wanted to test my BG before removing the POD and the PDM would not allow it. The Pod was automatically de-activated. hmmm that's a 1st for me. I removed the old and replaced it with the new POD and tested my BG...I was at 54!!! I called Insulet, the code # ended with 176. I asked if it were possible the POD had given me too much insulin and the Rep thought that could be why the POD alarmed! A little scary, but I'm glad it happened while I am at work rather than while I was sleeping. Has this happened to anyone else?
No…I just “feel” the low…Never had an alarm go off…
Hi Spooky, Do you remember “Why” it deactivated itself? Just curious…
My daughter has had a pod deactivate just after a bolus. Apparently there was an occlusion that didn’t alarm during the basal but when it attempted to send a larger amount of insulin with the bolus it detected the occlusion. So in our case, not enough insulin was being delivered. It was a little startling to have the pod suddenly deactivate on it’s own. We were lucky to be home.
There’s no alarm in the pod for a low. It only delivers insulin and has no idea what your BG level is.
It does have two microprocessors. One delivers the insulin and the other checks to see if the delivery agrees with the command received from the PDM. If it detects that too many (or too few) pulses are occuring, it issues the alarm and disables insulin delivery. That’s probably what happened. Redudant electronic and software features for everyone’s safety.
I can’t explain the “automatic” de-activation. It only does that if it detects an alarm and the user confirms the need to de-activate the pod (only a couple of button presses).
The pod will automatically de-activate with an occlusion. It happend to us shortly after doing a bolus on a newly applied pod. At least that is the reason given to us by Insulet Product Support.
ok. I couldn’t remember that feature anymore.
Hi Gil,
Thank you for this explanation. That gives me a little bit of comfort knowing that if/when it gives too much insulin ( more than it is programed to give) it will alarm & de-activate. The alarm code was 176 . These are small problems that I can deal with. After taking shots for 48 yeards, the POD is a blessing!!!
I think your best bet is to carry around another meter with you, so you can check without complications. When I tried the PING I had the same problem, so I started carying my AccuCheck Compact meter with me (in my bag or car) so if it wouldn’t let me test I could test on the meter.