We had a quite disturbing experience a few weeks ago that points to the Omnipod over-delivering insulin. I have attached a spreadsheet showing my daughter's logs for three PODs (one before & after). During these three pods, she ate pretty much her usual food and did her normal routine with no intense/long excersise. There was no sickness/infection or even minor cold. The same insulin vial was used for the 3 pods.
I hope this was an extremely rare event, else it will shake our confidence in the device. We are now hesitant to correct at bedtime.
Sorry to hear about your experience. It must have been frightening. I hope you and your daughter are well recovered.
In all honesty though, I have so many things that affect my sensitivity to insulin that determining pod overdelivery would be near impossible without having the means to measure insulinpre and post change down to at least the same order of magnitude as the pod is capable of delivering.
In general, I try not to do correction boluses before bedtime. For me, they are a crapshoot. The difference in the dreams I'm having from night to night can send my BG low or high relative to previous nights.
I suspect the POD because the BGs with this pod were consistently low. One other possibility could be an "over-sensitive site". But that should have just accelerated the effects of Insulin not cause a severe low 4 hours later.
I don't see anything that necessarily points to insulin over-delivery. One night you went low you were coming down from a very high blood sugar. It's possible that it was just over-correction. The other night you mentioned that the dinner was low-fat, if that is unusual then it is not surprising that you would need less insulin. Is it possible that there was an over delivery? I suppose so, but I wouldn't call those two nights conclusive evidence.
How old is your daughter? Could hormones be factoring in? I must be one of the weird ones where I don't get third day highs.....but I'm using Humalog - maybe makes a difference?
Thanks for your reply. The second night it went from 100 to 35 in an hour. This happened about 4 hours after eating. In 3-4 hours the food and bolus insulin are out of the system. I suspect that the pod was overdelivering basal. That is likely reflected in the low(er) daytime readings all three days as well. Things went back to "usual" after the pod change.
I would like to believe there was no pod issue, but I have not found a better explantion for the 3-day pattern with that pod. Consistent lows are not to be taken lightly.
She is 10 and may be experiencing hormonal changes but this pod had a 3-day low pattern. The pods prior and after were more what we noramlly see. A 3-day hormonal change is possible but is probably unlikely, I feel.
We used to have better experience with Humalog, but she would have wound marks from canula insertion last more than 3 months. With Apidra her wound marks disappear in 10-14 days.
Scary! I know. I've also gone along for 3 days and not been able to bring my bs down, changed pods and then couldn't keep them up and there doesn't seem to enough food to make a dent! Next change, runs perfect. Change again, and suddenly can't keep get them down, change again, constantly low. Honestly, I don't think it's the pod. I think it's a matter of placement, absorbtion and hundreds of variables. When I sense that I'm going to have a period of lows or highs I try and adjust my basal temporarly up or down. I'm curious if other pump users have the same issue when they change sights.
I've had pod change highs at sites that are much more sensitive than others. That indicates that there is a period of adjustment that the pod and site must go through before a consistent level of sensitivity is reached.
4 hours is just about the time it takes for me to fight with the pod before I can get consistent BGs, whether they be consistently lower or consistently higher than the previous site.
About the only thing I will absolutely avoid at all costs, even more than bolusing before bedtime, is a pod change before bedtime, precisely because of this issue.
