I had my first experience with a ‘PDM error’ last night after 1 year of pumping. I went to test my bg and got an onscreen message that said “PDM error, change the pod and call customer support”. Since I had just put that pod on earlier in the day I wasn’t happy to lose so much insulin. I’ve never been very successful at retrieving the majority of it. Not sure why, whether it is the way I try or what. Anyway after two phone calls and leaving two messages for customer support, they finally got back to me at 1:00 a.m. The lady was apologetic for calling at that hour and walked me through the process of resetting the PDM. Has this happened to other people too? Does it mean the PDM will break down in the near future? It was my 2nd generation PDM that I was using at the time.
I’ve done it twice. It seemed to be a battery issue. My battery likes to read at 3/4 for like 3 weeks and then in the span of 24 hours drop to dead. I’ve never called Insulet and not gotten an answer though! That worries me. But I did find that as long as I always keep extra batteries on me and change them the minute it drops below 3/4 the PDM has not problems. I don’t know what caused yours but I don’t think it’s likely to happen again. Good luck.
Spooky - That is exactly what has been happening to me. This is really scary. My PDM appears to have been ‘eating’ batteries right and left in the past 3 weeks. I bet I’ve changed them at least 5 times. The lady I spoke with last night did suggest several things though (from her own personal experience) (1) she uses Duracell or Ever ready batteries and (2) she doesn’t let the battery level on the PDM fall below 3/4 as Rebecca mentioned above. If it does go very low, she says it starts feeding off the internal battery-which according to her is not a good thing. So I offer these tips in hope that they will help all of us.
I’ve had this issue with both PDM versions. I have not found it to necessarily imply that the PDM’s viability is diminishing. I have noticed that PDM errors tend to happen when the battery is low. Keeping an eye on the battery life is helpful.
I too have had the blackout issue and worried that it meant that the PDM would soon fail. It seemed to be happening daily, however hasn’t happened in a while. Because we have a backup PDM, I’m not overly worried…yet.
Yikes! Thanks for the warnings, everyone.
Same thing happended to my son. When I called Insulet, they ended up replacing the PDM. We have had the PDM replaced twice in 4 months. Once for the battery thing and the other for a big spot that appeared on the PDM screen.
It’s happened to me twice. Once the PDM could not be reset and they replaced it. Then this week I had the same error and I did reset the PDM. My batteries were very low.
i hate when it does this!!! what a waste…not just insulin, but those sneaky little pods!!! one reason i’m learning to despise my omnipod…grrr!
myriah
Regarding: I have also been having a problem with finding the PDM dead. I have to open the back remove a battery and put it back then it restarts.
Mine did that a lot and I called Insulet and they replaced the PDM for me no charge.
I have retrieved insulin from pods numerous times. I just hold the pod with the insertion hole at the bottom, insert the syringe and withdraw the insulin slowly keeping up a constant vacuum. I get nearly all the insulin out. I really don’t think you need to take apart the pod, at least I never have had to.
Andy, This is a dumb question but…do you inject any air into the insertion hole at the bottom just after you insert the needle to retrieve the insulin from the pod? I tried taking the pod apart to retrieve the insulin and cut my finger in the process from the screw driver I was using at the time. I’m not mechanically inclined at all.