Hi !! My daughter (7 years old and diagnosed one year ago) just started on the Omnipod this past Wednesday so this is her fourth day – we changed it yesterday morning since it was time for a new pod. Later that afternoon the adhesive started to pull away leaving it loose on her arm so this morning we changed it out and placed it on her belly. The change went very well but her numbers have been HIGH all day !! We’ve checked ketones three or four times with numbers over 250 (all negative) and have corrected for all of them. We spoke with her NP and she changed her food doses around since we are still in that tweaking stage – but these 300’s are freaking my husband and I out !! Is this normal? She was on Humalog and Lantus before and we had her numbers in very good range – I’d love some reassurance from some experienced users out there !! Thanks !!
Hi! I use SkinTac (http://www.americandiabeteswholesale.com/-strse-2592/Torbot-Skin-Tac-Adhesive/Detail.bok) and it works wonders for keeping the pod on for the full three days, and I’m an active 20 year old so I needed all the help I could get! As far as her numbers… I’m only on month 3 of the pod and I still am tweaking certain things. Because of where the pod is placed, it can require different dosing based on how fatty/muscular the area is and how little scar tissue is there. I speak to my consultant very often and I recommended doing so! They are a great resource to have and will help you in every way they can. Best luck with everything!
Hi Mel. I feel your pain. My little guy is five and we have had all kinds of highs trying to get this figured out. Figuring out basals, IC ratios for three meals, and correction ratios while dealing with a new technology is awful!!! (I mistakingly thought this would be much easier, so I went onto the omnipod two weeks before him, naively believing that I would be up and running in two weeks!) We have had bad sites, bad pods, screeching pods, pods fall off - you name it - all while trying to figure out insulin levels. He was at HIGH for hours one morning. I was never so happy to finally see a 450! We have pulled several pods off of him (one at midnight) because we couldn’t get him below 300 for over 12 hours, and we didn’t know if it was a bad site, or just us trying to get his basals correct. This is a very hard and stressful time - so try not to worry about your daughter in the 250’s. We are going on 3 weeks that my son has been on the pump, and 5 weeks for me. It is just now starting to get easier! This is much easier said than done - but hang in there and try to have faith that it will all be OK. 
I can feel your pain and stress. The same is with us. My son is 5 years old and it’s our second week with pod. Sometimes I have to give him several correction before BS is going down (it seems like the body doesn’t absorb insulin at all). His average BS is about 200 for these weeks. Before OmniPod his TDD was 11 u (Lantus/Novolog). Right now it is at least 14 u.
I see that tweaking basal/IC and correction factor does help a lot. I wish that our endo office was more helpful with the adjusting these numbers. So, hopefully everything will work out. Good luck to all of us!
Yeah, Tyler’s BS average for the past 3 weeks is also 200, which is hard to see.
My son Caleb, who is now 7, has been using the OmniPod almost since he was diagnoses, about 4 years ago.
As far as adhesive - we saw the peeling away when Caleb started too. I had been using IV Prep. When I stopped using that and just prepped the area with alcohol, the sticking was better.
As far as 300s - been there too at the beginning. Caleb reacted very differently to all short acting insulin, particularly overnight. I would correct 300s only to correct again 2 hours later. His endo was very, very, very, extremely conservative in changing his settings. If I knew then what I know now…;). But we got there and Caleb does extremely well with the OmniPod.
Good luck. I hope your settings continue to be tweaked and you see some improvement soon.
Hey mel, I wouldn’t be too worried about a few 300s. I can speak to that since I have been Type 1 since 4 years old (diagnosed in 1959) and all is well. If it stays there for a couple of days you may want to be concerned but I’m sure you will have it down to normal soon. Just be careful of “stacking” which is when you are high you bolus 27 times because it isn’t coming down fast enough and before you know it the BG is at 29 and then we get crazy and pass out.
I do not use the Omnipod without first using the IV Prep Wipes that I get through my prescription provider. They seem to work very well. The one time I didn’t use them I did some yard work and it came loose hanging by the cannula. I just replaced it after I yanked it out and took a shower.
Good luck to you all and remember from the ex-young kid diabetic. It bothers you parents waaaaay more than it does us. Relax and enjoy life and don’t worry about the big “D”. Attitude is more than half the battle, in my opinion.
Thanks for everyone’s input – looks like it was a pod error so I just changed it out an hour ago – her ketones are finally at trace and her blood sugar is coming down – we’ve been up and down since 3 a.m. checking ketones and giving corrections – it is a learning process I am finding !! Really, really appreciate all of your comments – so glad to have found this site !!
My son started on the Omnipod in March. It does take some time to get the adjustments just right. I was faxing numbers to our endo just today to try and make the right tweaks. You have a more constant of insulin now rather than the peaks and valleys you had with shots. As far as using more insulin, is your daughter eating a little more freely than she did before on shots? That will give more insulin. Stress from the change, growth spurt etc. could be causing those higher numbers. My son’s numbers have run a bit higher on the pump, but we are still adjusting. He doesn’t have the terrible lows nearly every day like he did before. As far as keeping the pod on we use foam tape from Nexcare and just wrap it a couple of time. It’s waterproof and doesn’t cause an adhesive reaction like some of the other tapes. He doesn’t like coban. I’ve seen some post about increasing the basal temporarily after a pod change, but I haven’t really experimented with that. Don’t get discouraged.
I was SO discouraged last night that I was ready to call her NP and have her back to injections today – we had her in such good range with her shots – I am very diligent with carb counting and would change her ratios when needed – now I feel like any control I had is out the window – she hadn’t thrown ketones in one year for crying out loud !! Anyway – our evening went much better – she had a low of 73 at midnight and then at 3 a.m. she was at 155 – breakfast 149 then at 9:00 at school she was 333 (oy !!) then she hit a low of 81 then 61 at lunch – I’m still not completely sold on the pod – I keep thinking did we do the right thing? She was doing so well with injections why fix what isn’t broken – you know? I just need to know that in the long run this is the right thing b/c at this point I’m SO not there and would go back to injections 2morrow !!
I’m not probably the right person to give you any advice, since we are new to OmniPod as well and still fighting with the numbers. I do believe that in the long run it’s much better than the shots. You will have more precise control on the insulin delivery, where you can for example correct at 150 to bring it to 120 (I couldn’t do it with the shots, since the amount of insulin is really small).
What I like as well as that I can prebolus, temporary stop or reduce basal and do super bolus. Those things in my opinion help a lot to reduce spikes or lows when you advanced in pumping. We were doing Lantus/Novolog and our numbers several weeks prior switching to the pump were really good (expect we were having lows in the morning and highs after a breakfast). So, we wanted to have the better control of the situation. I hope the pump will help us.
We do occasionally getting 300s out of the blue, but we were getting the same out of the blue high numbers when we were adjusting Lantus/Novolog dosage. It’s like you are starting everything all over again.
Hope it brings to you (and me as well) some strength to fight this freaking decease.
Two things pop in my mind here. One, she is old enough to make the decision what she wants - shots or pump. I waited until my son (he’s five, diagnosed at 1) asked for and wanted a pump. I have been a diabetic for twenty years and never wanted to wear one. I went on it with him, because after 10 great years on lantus, all of a sudden I was in poor control (a1c of 7, and lots of highs and lows). For my son, he was in OK control on shots (a1c high 7’s), but his night numbers were all over the place. So we made the decision together to try it. It has been so hard and stressful. When we had to wake him up at midnight and change his pod because we couldn’t get him below 300 for 12 hours, he begged to go back on shots. Broke my heart. He sometimes will ask for shots again on pod-change days. (or like this last weekend where we had one pod fall off, and one start screeching) But after the pod change, he always says he wants to stay on it.
Getting these basals, IC ratios and correction factors right is sooooo hard. I have cried many tears in frustration, too. BUT, after 4 weeks for him, and 6 weeks for me, it is starting to get easier. It sounds like today (before lunch) she was either corrected too early after her morning basal or her correction factor is off. I know for myself and my son, we never correct a morning high until 3 hours after the bolus. I can correct two hours after lunch or dinner, but not breakfast. Or, if there was a proper time window from the breakfast bolus, her correction factor may be too high. I know, so much to think about. Try to keep your eye on the bigger picture, she is doing relatively good. Ask her what she thinks of the pod so far…
Also wanted to reply to Serge’s comments. It is true, you never know when that 300 is going to pop up! They happen on shots or pumps. I personally like being on the pump, and it was a loooong fight to get me to try it.
thanks – you are right – she is old enough to make that decision and when we asked her last night she said she wanted to stay on the pump – i have to respect that b/c it is her body and i want her to be as comfortable as possible … personally I think she would be okay either way b/c she never once complained about her shots and was always diligent about reminding us that she was finished with her meal and she was ready for her shot … i think i am just very frustrated right now trying to “relearn” everything when i finally felt like i had a handle on ratios and we had a good schedule going !! and – of course – i’m on my seventh night of midnight and 3 a.m. bs checks and our night before that it was midnight, 3 a.m., 5 a.m., then morning and ketones, ketones, ketones !! just overwhelming – i’m thankful for a good day today and tonight we download her numbers to her NP for any tweaking – thanks so much for your comment !! all of these stories lift me up :o)
I just re-read that she’s only been on the pump for about a week. Yep, it is just like re-learning everything. Lack of sleep makes every situation seem much worse, too. On a good note - I had pancakes today for breakfast and used the extended bolus, and never went high. I could have NEVER done that with lantus/novalog!!!
Please do not get to discouraged! My son is 7 and we have been using the pod now for about 7 weeks. Wow what a ride so far! Honestly the pod is keeping him in much better control - actually to the point that we experienced his first seizure. Which no words can ever explain! It will be something that I truly think I will never fully recover from - I just pray it never happens again. Obviously we have tweaked numbers constantly and sleep is something that never comes anymore. We are starting a continuous glucose monitor on Thursday and I truly hope it helps with adjusting his basal rates and bolus calcs. Hang in there - I have found the support here is truly helpful for me!!
Just keep in mind that moving to a pump is like being diagnosed all over again. It takes time to work the routine, IC ratios, basals, correction factors, etc. For us, it was a few weeks of tweaking (I like to let things go two or three days to either prove or disprove that levels are correct before changing) but once we did, we have been very happy with it. Best of all, my son is able to take a lot more responsibility for himself, as he would not give himself shots.
Hang in there. It will get better!