My 12 year old son was diagnosed w/type 1 three months ago. We are looking into getting him a pump.
We were leaning towards the Ping because it is waterproof and he loves to swim, but now we are unsure. The Ping only holds 200 units of insulin and we have been told that it may not be enough to last 3 days for a growing boy when he is going through puberty, etc.
Right now he is in the honeymoon stage. I have no idea what his insulin needs will be when he is a teenager and out of honeymoon. We are hoping to only have to change out the infusion site every three days.
Does anyone know if 200 units would usually be enough for a teenage boy out of honeymoon, or would we be changing it out every 1-2 days?
Has anyone had any problems with the Ping? I also heard that you have to change out the battery cap every 3 months when you use it in the water and that the battery cap isn't covered by insurance and can be expensive. I have also read that the Ping is a pain to change the batteries. I have also heard of problems with the Medtronic.
I'm not sure what to do. Anyone have any recommendations for what pump they like? My son does not want the Omnipod. Since he will have to have the pump for four years, I want to make the best decision for him.
i have been on ping and medtronic. i like the ping better.the battery cap on ping. you can by a battery cap opener from ping.how many time you change. is the how muck insulin we used.i wounld go with ping
My son was 14 when he started pumping in 2007. He did not have a choice at the time as medtronic was the only pump that RN's specializing in pump use at CHEO were trained on back then. 200 units would have been close during the 14 to 18 age range to meet his needs as he was very active, and eating on average 300 to 500 carbs per day. For him his average total daily dose for insulin was just 60 units.
The funny thing though is that during that age range he was often changing the infusion set every other day as his skin and body was resisting leaving the infusion sets in longer than two days.
He had the option of omnipod, ping and medtronic when his new pump was ordered last summer. He chose to stick with medtronic, probably because he is just comfortable navigating mm's menus after five years with an mm pump. Swimming is not a problem as he can unhook for short periods of time, but I often think that if his pump were waterproof, he'd participate in some of the water sports that his Dad enjoys like kayaking. Not to say he can't, but he'd have to limit his time on the water before reconnecting.
We decided to order the Ping. My son is really exicted about it. We really like the waterproof feature.
I'm hoping that it will be a smooth transition from MDI to the pump.
These last three months have been a blur. My son was diagnosed in November (in DKA), transitioned to MDI in December, now we are moving onto the pump. I suppose next we will need to get a CGM. I hope we won't need one for a while.
I would recommend the MM Paradigm Revel as the Animas pump as a end date I believe the Ping is in 2022 but that is really not that far away in regards to pump lasting that long. I have had my MM for years and I absolutely love it. I would not go with any other brand other than T:slim
For the PING you only get 178 usable units after loading 200 and then priming the tubing and the cannula.
Battery cap - I have used Animas 2020 for 3 years then Ping for 2 years and have only replaced battery cap once and never changed the cap for the reservoir. But then I have never taken it purposely into water.
I change the set every three days, but have to change the reservoir about every 40 hours. You do not have to change both at the same time.
