Thanks for the app recommendation. I’ll definitely take a look at it!
I ended up keeping the Dexcom on and not the pump for now, mainly because the air gaps make me nervous. The other night I changed a site before bed because of a large bubble. I stayed up for an hour or so to make sure it was working, and it seemed to be fine. I woke up a few hours later, and my BG had literally doubled and was continuing to rise. The dexcom didn’t catch the spike, so basically the whole system failed and could’ve caused big problems.
I have real trouble with the uncertainty about whether I have no insulin in my body at a given time. I’ve been blessed with pretty good control on MDI, and if nothing else, I know as long I don’t forget my Tresiba there’s always insulin in there somewhere. That’s a comfort I hadn’t realized I missed on the pump. But I know everyone has different feelings about shots and pumps, and that’s ok with me.
I’m so sorry to hear about the bad pods! That sounds really stressful. I’ll have to check out treatments for my scarring. Thanks for the recommendation!
There are a couple things that can make pumping and CGMs a hassle. The first is that the infusion site starts losing insulin absorption as soon as it’s inserted which means there a delay for even fast acting insulin to take affect. There is a lesser delay for injections unless you overused and scarred the injection site.
The problem with all CGM is they read bg in the fluid under your skin instead of your blood stream. There’s a built in delay between when that fluid reads your glucose level and your blood reads that level. If you compare it with a meter, the CGM may not catch up with the meter especially when it’s rising or falling rapidly.
If you’re still having unusual issues after “self training”, I’d call Dexcom or TSlim directly and get some help.
I absolutely detested MDI and finger sticks so I made the Medtronic system and now the Dexcom and TSLIM work for me.
Thank you for your insight. I took a break from the pump in late May and am still not using it at this point, but I did decide to stick with the Dexcom to figure out whether it was just a learning curve issue. I’m happy to report that I think I’ve solved some issues I had with them.
First, I was inserting them without SkinTac and not using fatty enough areas. Using different areas (like love handles lol) has made a huge difference. I also starting giving them a soaking time overnight and allowing them to just be glitchy and terrible the first day. Not getting frustrated and calibrating too soon has made a huge difference. I do calibrate when I need to, as I’ve noticed I will lose accuracy for hours and even days after a bad low. I give things time to settle and then calibrate before bed (a calm BG time) if I need to. The last three sensors have lasted nine or even ten days for me.
The next step is to go back to my CDE this week to troubleshoot the bubbles and site issues I was having. We are going to start with a saline solution so I have time to practice and use a different infusion set to see if that helps. Hoping to be able to transition back to the pump by later this month. I do miss not worrying about lows so much, especially at night. We’ll see!
