I’ve been podding for nearly six months now, and the other night I had something happen that was new to me. I placed a pod on my abdomen, and when the cannula was inserted, it was extremely painful. I thought the pain would go away like it usually does, even though I had never had one hurt anywhere near this bad. After about five minutes, I was still stinging and burning pretty severely, so I deactivated it, removed the insulin and put on a new pod. I got some bleeding from the insertion site, but it felt better immediately. I put the new pod on the same site, reversing the orientation, and everything was fine. I guess I just hit a nerve or something, but that’s never happened before.
I have had that happen if I hit a bad spot. It will really hurt when it goes in, and it will still be a little painful. I kept one in one time because I didn’t want to take a pod off I just put on, and around dinner time, it started stinging. I looked in the little window and there was a blood pool in the window! So now, if it hurts, I will usually replace it right away =)
I had something like that happen to me also. It was one of the early times I tried a pod on my arm. It stung a little at first and got a little better but never felt comfortable. That night I thought someone had stuck a needle in my arm so I deactivated and removed it. Put the new one on my abdomen. The site looked OK so I was a little baffled. Maybe it hit a muscle or something. This has never happened again but it did put me off using my arm for a while. Now I use my arm almost exclusively.
It also happened to me on my arm once - I knew within 5 minutes that it was hitting a nerve and couldn’t’ stay.
Another time, I placed a pod on my lower back in the morning and it was fine. But by late that evening I would send a sharp pain shooting through that area if I moved in certain ways; it was a strange feeling because it only hurt with certain movements, otherwise I didn’t feel it at all. But when it hurt, I was basically immobilized.
I called Insulet after posting this and the tech guy said I probably hit a muscle. He suggested always pinching the skin during insertion to avoid this, which I never do. He also said he would send a replacement pod.
Jim-
This happens to me when I place the pod where the stomach folds. It sucks and hurts. I try to make a mental note not to put it there again but sometimes I do it every once in a while.
I always pinch up, mainly because I have no fat. I once put it too close to my ribs, and any time that something touched it, it hurt like crazy! I kept it on though, because it wasn’t bad by itself.
I have only had this happen once with the omnipod- same issue as above- filled with blood (actually had blood running down my stomach where people in my office could see through my shirt!- luckily I work in a hospital and someone thought a patient had bleed on me lol) I had a lot of issues like this though with my MM pumps it seemed every other site would hurt so bad I had to take it out hence my switch to the pod.
Yeah, I’ve done that plenty of times. For me, any pain after insertion, really mild or even a sense of awareness of the cannula, and I’ll take it right off. Experience has shown that if I ignore it I’ll end up with really crappy BS control. Bleeding at the site is variable; I’ve only had a couple of “gushers”. The picture was taken during the Race Across America, where a site on my arm wouldn’t stop bleeding for a few minutes; it was really pretty funny. Absolute worst was hitting a tendon low on my upper arm, lots of pain and I was bruised for a week.
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